Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to respond to the latest report by the Famine Early Warning System, which highlights the risk of worsening food security.

The Department for International Development monitor the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) reports and updates on a weekly basis. We also contribute to improving the methodology used for these assessments. FEWS produce many reports and cover many regions and countries, although not all of the countries at risk. When the risk of a significant worsening food security situation is reported by FEWS or others, DFID engages in a dialogue with other governments and with our operational partners on the best possible early response.

In places where we have a comparative advantage, such as countries where we have offices and an on-going bilateral programme, we fund food security, livelihood and nutrition interventions.

In countries most often at risk we also run resilience and food security programmes aimed at making communities more robust to future deterioration in food security or shocks such as droughts, floods and other natural disasters.