The Global Food Security programme aims to generate evidence and support for collaborative decision-making mechanisms that would facilitate greater coordination and collaboration in national and international policy-making on food-related issues.
This project will explore connectivity in national-level policy and governance structures that support key UK Government food system objectives, identifying opportunities for greater coordination to optimise decision making processes and provide greater support towards reaching food security goals.
In light of current geopolitical change alongside pressing international objectives set by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris climate agreement, there is a growing need to ensure there is strong connectivity across decision-making that affects food systems, providing greater support for national and global food security (ref 1).
While national and international food policy and governance structures are well established, decision-making could be enhanced through use of novel policy mechanisms that meet the changing needs of modern food systems and evolving food security challenge; for example, there may be benefits to increasing policy connectivity across food, environment, health and enterprise in response to the rise of cross-cutting goals like the SDGs (ref 2).
While there are undoubtedly opportunities, a strong evidence base will be necessary to determine the costs and benefits of any policy or governance change. To this end, GFS aims to generate support for collaborative decision-making mechanisms across governance structures that underpin national and international food policy, identifying opportunities for greater coordination to optimise decision making processes.
