Food Security, Development Finance and Governance Quality: The Nexus

This is an in-person event.

Tuesday, 18 March 2025 from 11.00 until 12.30.

The UN Handbook on Human Security in 2016 clearly identifies food security (in terms of hunger, famine and sudden rise in food prices) as one of the key domains of human security, along with economic, health, environmental, community, political and personal insecurity. The relationship between Human Security and Food Security was also emphasized in the UN General Assembly’s resolution 66/290 in 2012. At the same time, the SDG-2 on Zero Hunger prioritizes food security issues in the overall SDGs 2030 Agenda.

Food security and malnutrition issues in particular are currently attracting a lot of attention by the international development community, including the broad UN system, in view of their centrality for food security in developing countries, particularly in the SSA region. Needless to say, the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Ukraine war have further worsened the above situation in recent years through a major disruption in food supply chains, lower incomes and higher prices of some foods, putting food out of reach for many, and thus undermining the right to food and stalling efforts to meet the SDG-2 on Zero Hunger by 2030.

In view of the above, the world hunger rate has worsened, post-2020. As of 2023, between 713 and 757 million people (about 9.1% of the world population) are now considered undernourished, globally (FAO-IFAD-UNICEF-WFP-WHO Report, 2024). And according to the UN report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (2024), the largest share of the food-insecure population is concentrated in Africa, where about 20.4% of its population experienced hunger, as compared to 8.1% in Asia.

Against this background, the seminar will reflect on recent and forthcoming published research work by the speaker in this important research and policy area with particular emphasis on the overall nexus between food security, development finance and governance quality and new empirical evidence.

Speaker: 

George Mavrotas (PhD Oxford) is a development economist with about 35 years of experience in international development with a broad range of research interests which include inter alia development finance, the macroeconomics of aid effectiveness, food security and nutrition, poverty reduction and agricultural transformation, as well as international migration and urbanization and development.

He is currently a Full Professor at the Institute of Development Policy of the University of Antwerp in Belgium; and a Senior Fellow of the Foundation for International Development Study and Research (Ferdi), Clermont-Ferrand (honorary appointment).

Prior to joining the University of Antwerp, he was a Senior Fellow of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Chief Economist of the Global Development Network (GDN), Senior Research Fellow and Project Director at the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) and prior to that on the Economics Faculties of the Universities of Oxford and Manchester where he taught for many years. He also taught as Visiting Professor at the Universities of Helsinki (Finland), CERDI-Auvergne (Clermont-Ferrand, France), and Peking University (Beijing).

He is widely published in a broad range of research areas in international development and he is the author and co-author of more than 150 publications, including numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals (such as Economica, Oxford Economic Papers, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, Agricultural Economics, Food Security, Review of Development Economics, Economic Modelling, Journal of Financial Stability, European Journal of Finance, Manchester School, Journal of International Affairs, Public Health Nutrition, PLoS ONE, Maternal and Child Nutrition and World Economy among many others) and 10 books. Books include Challenges of Urbanization: Perspectives from the Global South (Routledge, 2021; with K. Sridhar); Security and Development (Edward Elgar, 2011 – with contributions by leading scholars including Nobel Laureate Michael Spence); Foreign Aid for Development: Issues, Challenges and the New Agenda (Oxford University Press, 2010 – endorsements for this book are available here); Commodities, Governance and Economic Development under Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; with M. Nissanke); Development Aid: A Fresh Look (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; with M. McGillivray); Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Financial Development, Institutions, Growth and Poverty Reduction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; with B. Guha-Khasnobis); Development Finance in the Global Economy: The Road Ahead (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; with T. Addison); Advancing Development: Core Themes in Global Economics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; with A. F. Shorrocks – both in hardback and paperback, a bestseller in Palgrave Macmillan - with a Foreword by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen); and Commodity Supply Management by Producing Countries (Oxford University Press, 1997; with A. Maizels and R. Bacon).

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