Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Climate resilience and food security in Central America: a practical framework

2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17565529.2015.1064806

1756-5537

Lívia Bíziková, Stephen Tyler, Marcus Moench, Marius Keller, Daniella Echeverría,

Agricultural risk and resilience

AbstractThis article introduces and tests a framework that applies a systems perspective to food security with an assessment of the food system's resilience in the context of climate change. The framework was applied in 20 communities in Honduras and Nicaragua. Our results indicate that contributions from supporting systems, institutions and processes are crucial to ensure overall food system resilience and critical food utilization and access dimensions. These systems include natural resources and their management and critical infrastructure (transport, power, communications, storage, etc.) along with key institutional policies and processes for participation in decision-making. To improve resilience in food systems, it is important to increase household and community subsistence, local markets and food storage in accessing key staple items for good nutrition. At the same time, institutions must be strengthened to build capacities and monitor trends in food security, health and disease, and emergency preparedness. The framework helped to reveal the dependence of community food security, and especially food utilization and access, on decisions at the regional and national levels, beyond the direct control of the communities. Finally, users stressed the usefulness of the framework in structuring complex interactions of resilience features across different dimensions of the food system, which later could be used to inform local and regional decision- and policy-makers.Keywords: food systemresiliencefood securityclimate changeCentral America AcknowledgementsThe views expressed and information contained in the paper are not necessarily those of or endorsed by DFID, which can accept no responsibility for such views or information or for any reliance placed on them. The contributions of our colleagues at IISD (Marius Keller, Alicia Natalia Zamudio and Darren Swanson) and partners from Action Against Hunger – Spain (ACF-E) (Ramón Guevara Flores, Carlos Heer and Daysi González), National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) (Andrea Sosa Rivera and Angie Murillo Gough) and Central American University (UCA) (José Luis Solózano, Ceferino Wilson, Xochilt Hernandez and Steve Bushley) are gratefully acknowledged.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1. The FEWS NET is funded by the United States Agency for International Development. It collaborates with international, regional and national partners to provide timely and rigorous early warning and vulnerability information on emerging and evolving food security issues. FEWS NET professionals in Africa, Central America, Haiti, Afghanistan and the USA monitor and analyse relevant data and information in terms of its impacts on livelihoods and markets to identify potential threats to food security (http://www.fews.net/Pages/default.aspx).2. Discovering the food system a primer on community food systems: linking food, nutrition and agriculture (http://www.discoverfoodsys.cornell.edu/primer.html).3. We use the diagram as a tool to support analysis. Each ring of this diagram can turn independently to align components that relate to each other at different levels. To emphasize this conceptual rotation, we refer to the tool in the diagram as a spinwheel.Additional informationFundingThe research reported in this paper was supported through a project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for the benefit of developing countries.