Plenary Panel: Food Insecurity as a Result of Access Denial in the Horn of Africa

Climate vulnerability, low adaptive capacity, conflict, and state fragility drive acute food security challenges across the Horn of Africa. Prolonged drought in the region has devastated communities–especially pastoralists–resulting in 37 million people experiencing the worst hunger crisis in the last 70 years. Although humanitarian organizations have experimented with new modalities to mitigate acute food insecurity, aid remains hampered by insufficient resources and access challenges, including bureaucratic impediments and interference, hostilities, and physical constraints.

The international community must resolve existing barriers and recommit to addressing the world’s most prolonged and acute food crisis. This panel brings together food security and humanitarian experts to examine the intersection of food security and humanitarian access in the Horn of Africa, including response modalities, political and conflict dynamics, and famine risk.