Summary (English)

This paper examines national and international efforts to address and recover from the impacts of the economic and financial crisis. Given the widespread and deepening impacts of the crisis on the world’s hungry, the focus is on food security, and on the safety nets and related social protection interventions that national governments are striving to put in place to protect vulnerable populations. The need for such programmes is increasingly urgent. Hunger and food insecurity retard growth and development; large groups of vulnerable people raise risks of humanitarian crises, which undermine public and private investments. Examples of how the United Nations system as a whole, and UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, and WFP in particular, are working to support and strengthen national safety nets and related social protection interventions are provided. Strategic priorities for promoting food security and reducing vulnerability during the recovery are outlined, drawing implications for the four agencies and the United Nations system at large.