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Political Science > Agriculture & Food Policy

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Sierra Leone: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper highlights mobilizing mining revenue in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a resource-rich economy, and its mining sector can generate revenue to finance its development goals and ensure debt sustainability. It previously incorporated its mining fiscal regime for industrial miners into mineral license agreements that are difficult to modify. Negotiated tax concessions, combined with acute capacity challenges in revenue administration, are hindering revenue performances and have led to an elevated reliance on fees and trade taxes which increase investor costs, hindering competitiveness. Sierra Leone legislated a new fiscal regime—the Extractive Industries Revenue Act (EIRA)—in 2018 for new investments. Applying the EIRA could significantly boost revenue performance, whilst also ensuring taxes are responsive to changes in economic conditions. Stronger revenue performance will require a stronger revenue administration. Efforts to improve mineral royalty compliance are starting to pay dividends but NRA will need to bolster its resources and widen its skill sets.
Keywords:
trade cost; programs in Sierra Leone; spending program; policy option; Policy recommendation; inflation surge; Climate change; Women; Inflation; Food security; Trade facilitation; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
How do Economic Growth and Food Inflation Affect Food Insecurity?
Christian Bogmans
,
Andrea Pescatori
, and
Ervin Prifti
During the global recession of 2020 food insecurity increased substantially in many countries around the world. Fortunately, the surge in food insecurity quickly came to a halt as the world economy returned to its positive growth path, despite double-digit domestic food inflation in most countries. To shed light on the relative importance of income growth and food inflation in driving food insecurity, we employ a heterogeneous-agent model with income inequality, complemented by novel cross-country data for the period 2001-2021. We use external instruments (changes in commodity terms-of-trade, external economic growth, and harvest shocks) to isolate exogenous variation in domestic income growth and ood inflation. Our findings suggest that income growth is the dominant driver of annual variations in food insecurity, while food price inflation plays a somewhat smaller role, aligning with our model predictions.
Keywords:
Food insecurity; inclusive growth; food inflation; inequality; diet.; food inflation affect food insecurity; food price inflation; affect food insecurity; income growth; Food security; Income; Food prices; Inflation; Price elasticity; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Burkina Faso: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper highlights trends, impacts, and policy implications in Burkina Faso. Regional insecurity has also created increased cross-border displacement, both into and out of Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso has devised several policy responses, including in cooperation with international partners. Despite these measures, the persistent crisis of forced displacement means that the need for humanitarian assistance remains. A successful strategy for addressing the displacement crisis should be broad-based in terms of partners and approaches. Given the country's economic and financial challenges, an in-depth understanding is needed of the economic impact of forced displacement and possible solutions. In other countries, studies show positive economic outcomes to host regions of forced displacement. The inclusion of forced displaced persons in the Unified Social Register and national social nets programs would facilitate the implementation of assistance and, along with other national repositories help improve urban management and budget planning.
Keywords:
growth experience; C. socio-economic Impact; C. policy response; impact of climate change; agriculture productivity; Climate change; Productivity; Food security; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Burkina Faso: 2024 Article IV Consultation and First Review Under the Extended Credit Facility and Financing Assurances Review-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Burkina Faso
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This paper focuses on Burkina Faso’s 2024 Article IV Consultation and First Review under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement and Financing Assurances Review. Burkina Faso’s performance under the program has been positive. All quantitative performance criteria, all indicative targets but one, and most structural benchmarks for the first review were met; some structural benchmarks were implemented with delay. Burkina Faso faces multiple development challenges, including heightened security conditions, climate change, and food insecurity. The authorities are progressing in their fiscal consolidation efforts, structural reforms and fiscal governance measures, and the creation of fiscal space for priority spending. Growth accelerated in 2023 to 3.6 percent of gross domestic product, supported by a rebound in construction and expansion of the tertiary sector. Inflation significantly decreased, and the fiscal and debt positions improved. Growth is projected at 5.5 percent in 2024 but remains below potential in the medium term, and a lasting recovery is contingent on bringing security under control.
Keywords:
consultation cycle; HIPC resource; investment expenditure budgeting; SDR equivalent; appreciation to IMF management; Debt sustainability; Food security; Global; Africa
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Belize: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issue paper documents the recent episode of food inflation and food insecurity in Belize. The paper also overviews what policies were announced in Belize and the Caribbean during the recent cost-of-living crisis; and discusses the policies Belize could implement to protect its most vulnerable households from the threat of food insecurity going forward. It discusses the appropriate policies to protect vulnerable households from food price inflation going forward based on economic theory and best practices and estimates how much it would cost the government of Belize to protect the vulnerable population against a rise in food prices like the one in 2022. The authorities should evaluate the impact of the recent policy that regulates mark-ups on essential goods by wholesale and retail operators when they have sufficient data. The limits on the mark-up for 32 essential goods were introduced to limit the increase in food prices and avoid monopolistic practices.
Keywords:
food inflation; staff ream; debt target; cost of living crisis; B. food inflation; food inflation in Belize; price signals work; Food prices; Food security; Inflation; Fiscal stance; Caribbean; Global
Cover Policy Papers
Development Committee: The Managing Director's Written Statement October 2023
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
The global economy has shown resilience, but the recovery is slow and uneven. Risks have moderated in recent months but remain tilted to the downside. Headline inflation is about half of its 2022 peak but the decline in core inflation is more gradual. Growth momentum across most low-income and emerging market countries is weakening and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is becoming increasingly challenging. While restoring price stability, normalizing fiscal policy, and protecting the vulnerable remain near-term policy priorities, policymakers should actively pursue policies that can support sustained growth—including macro-structural reforms and green transition. Multilateral cooperation is critical to address the challenges that hold back global recovery and shadow future prosperity, including risks associated with geoeconomic fragmentation.
Keywords:
growth; multilateral cooperation; emerging market country; policy priority; growth momentum; decline in core inflation; inflation expectation; Inflation; Price stabilization; Climate change; Monetary tightening; Food security; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Coping with Climate Shocks: Food Security in a Spatial Framework
Diogo Baptista
,
John A Spray
, and
Ms. Filiz D Unsal
We develop a quantitative spatial general equilibrium model with heterogeneous house-holds and multiple locations to study households’ vulnerability to food insecurity from cli-mate shocks. In the model, households endogenously respond to negative climate shocks by drawing-down assets, importing food and temporarily migrating to earn additional income to ensure sufficient calories. Because these coping strategies are most effective when trade and migration costs are low, remote households are more vulnerable to climate shocks. Food insecure households are also more vulnerable, as their proximity to a subsistence requirement causes them to hold a smaller capital buffer and more aggressively dissave in response to shocks, at the expense of future consumption. We calibrate the model to 51 districts in Nepal and estimate the impact of historical climate shocks on food consumption and welfare. We estimate that, on an annual basis, floods, landslides, droughts and storms combined generated GDP losses of 2.3 percent, welfare losses of 3.3 percent for the average household and increased the rate of undernourishment by 2.8 percent. Undernourished households experience roughly 50 percent larger welfare losses and those in remote locations suffer welfare losses that are roughly two times larger than in less remote locations (5.9 vs 2.9 percent). In counterfactual simulations, we show the role of better access to migration and trade in building resilience to climate shocks.
Keywords:
Agriculture; Food Security; Trade, Migration; Climate change; Climate shocks; welfare loss; food consumption; migration cost; loss from climate; losses from climate change; Consumption; Migration; Income; Global
Cover Policy Papers
Review of Experience with The Food Shock Window Under The Rapid Financing Instrument and The Rapid Credit Facility
International Monetary Fund. Finance Dept.
,
International Monetary Fund. Legal Dept.
, and
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
The Food Shock Window (FSW) under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) was approved in September 2022 for 12 months, as a complement to the tools used by the Fund to support the broader international effort to address the global food shock. The Fund has been working closely with partners to provide a coordinated international response to the global food shock, and has contributed through policy advice, technical assistance and lending. Where needed and possible, financial support to countries affected by the global food shock has been delivered by the IMF through multi-year Fund-supported programs The FSW complemented this support in situations where these programs were not feasible or not necessary. As the global food shock and associated balance of payment pressures are expected to continue throughout 2023, the IMF extended the FSW until end-March 2024 to allow the FSW to continue serving as a contingency tool. This extension will also provide sufficient time to observe if the FSW can lapse without limiting the capacity of the Fund to support its members. To ensure adequate borrowing space under the emergency financing limits for those countries that have received support through the FSW, the IMF also extended the additional 25 percent of quota added to the Cumulative Access Limit until end-2026 for countries that have accessed the Food Shock Window through the RFI and until the completion of the 2024/25 PRGT review for those that accessed the Food Shock Window through the RCF.
Keywords:
Cumulative Access Limits; Rapid Financing Instrument; Rapid Credit Facility; Food Insecurity; FSW request; FSW financing; UCT-quality program; FSW relative; FSW experience; FSW resource; Food security; Food prices; Emergency assistance; Balance of payments need; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Nepal: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper utilizes a new macro-model capturing food insecurity, migration and trade in Nepal. It shows that low yields and remoteness explain a majority of the difference in prevalence of food insecurity across districts in Nepal; both climate shocks and persistent climate-change increase food insecurity and disproportionately harm the most vulnerable; and lower wages in migrant destinations would reduce remittances, increase food insecurity and lower welfare. The paper then presents and quantifies a number of potential policies to address these issues. The paper quantifies the impact of a number of policy options (cash transfers, better infrastructure, and improved agricultural productivity) to address food insecurity and climate change. In addition to climate shocks, persistent climate change will lower welfare, increase food insecurity, and migration. Given the model results show that agricultural productivity is a key determinant of food security, Nepal can learn from other countries policies including in agricultural extension, improved community water management techniques, and climate resilient agriculture in line with the National Adaptation Plan.
Keywords:
food insecurity in Nepal; NAC's risk rating; migration cost; remittances in Nepal; NAC's borrowing; Climate change; Food security; Loans; Migration; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Central African Republic: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper on the fintech and crypto assets in the Central African Republic (CAR). CAR’s initial steps in the form of the 2022 crypto law have created legal uncertainties at the Central African Economic and Monetary Community level and raised numerous concerns but some of the most controversial provisions have been recently revised. The authorities have proceeded with the launch of a digital coin named Sango and namesake platform-ecosystem with multifaceted features. While only a limited amount of coins have been issued and other elements of the project have not been launched, project Sango has attracted considerable interest as it can potentially bring opportunities through digitization, while also raising complex risks. This range from macro-fiscal and financial to financial integrity, governance, consumer protection and others. The Sango project appears too complex, creating interconnectedness between multiple sectors and private and public balance sheets in a manner, which could raise systemic risks, pointing to the importance of reconsidering the existing blueprint.
Keywords:
reforming fuel price; import cost audit; cryptographic ambition; CAR authorities; fuel products; Virtual currencies; Food security; Fuel prices; Price structures; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa