Working with complexity and turbulence - and becoming friends with it

François Grünewald;Agriculture and Economic Development Analysis Division

Working with complexity and turbulence - and becoming friends with it

FAO International Workshop on “Food Security in Complex Emergencies: building policy frameworks to address longer-term programming challenges” Tivoli, 23-25 September 2003

Year of publication 2003

Author François Grünewald;Agriculture and Economic Development Analysis Division

Product type Meeting

Edition 1

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Synopsis (short abstract) Confronting complex emergencies with intelligence, turbulence with flexibility and unpredictability with multi-scenario planning are not easy tasks. The often confront the aid community (UN, NGOs and donors) with its own limits in terms of assessment, planning and resource allocation. In dangerous and fast-changing environments, however, the wrong move increasingly kills aid workers and restricts access to affected populations. There is no quick fix to this situation. We have to become friends w ith complexity and turbulence – they are an irreducible part of current reality.

Language English

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The number and scale of conflict-related, food security emergencies is increasing, and the role of human-induced conflict in escalating a natural crisis, such as a drought, to a food security emergency has grown in importance over the last decade. HIV/AIDS is another important factor exacerbating natural and human-induced crises. But while the number of short-term emergency interventions is increasing and funds are diverted towards humanitarian aid, resources for long-term development aid h ave stagnated or decreased. The challenge is to create a new framework which includes responses to both short-term emergencies and sustainable food security. However, while humanitarianism is guided by a clear set of principles, concepts for longer-term policies and interventions require further development.
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Countries that manifest high levels of food insecurity genearlly experience in high levels of conflict, which results in complex emergencies. These countries need to adopt well-planned, short-, medium- and long-term measures to improve their food security situation. The food security policy should cover all sectors of the food chain, including increasing food availability through production and importation, improving marketing efficiency, increasing people’s purchasing power and setting up effec tive early warning and food information systems (EWFIS). An effective EWFIS should use data spanning the entire food chain (ie meteorological, remote sensing, agricultural statistics etc). EWFIS is useful not only for monitoring the food security situation to detect areas and segments of the population that are facing deterioriating food security, but also for providing relevant data (eg baseline data, vulnerability maps etc) need for longer term planning to move the affected populations from vu lnerability to sustainable development.
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With regard to the ‘complex emergencies’-‘food security’ nexus, institutional policies have often advanced generalized responses such as offering food aid to meet the challenges concerned. Such responses however may actually result from poor analysis or active interests to pursue particular solutions irrespective of the specific problem of situation. This paper will argue that with respect to ‘complex emergencies’ the kind of requirements they may pose to meet problems of food security, the scop e for developing general policy responses remains very limited. Cumbersome as it may appear, it rather appears advisable to start from an opposite premise, namely that each complex emergency requires its own analysis and response. In terms of preparatory action, this implies a need for less attention in searching for ready-made solutions, and more towards enhancement of institutional capacities to diagnose emergency situations when they arise and as they develop.