Our Food Security Projects

World Bank Action

As part of a comprehensive, global response to the ongoing food security crisis, the World Bank Group is making up to $30 billion available in existing and new projects in areas such as agriculture, nutrition, social protection, water and irrigation:

A $125 million project in Jordan aims to strengthen the development the agriculture sector by enhancing its climate resilience, increasing competitiveness and inclusion, and ensuring medium- to long-term food security.
A $300 million project in Bolivia that will contribute to increasing food security, market access and the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices.
A $315 million loan to support Chad, Ghana and Sierra Leone to increase their preparedness against food insecurity and to improve the resilience of their food systems.
A $500 million Emergency Food Security and Resilience Support Project to bolster Egypt's efforts to ensure that poor and vulnerable households have uninterrupted access to bread, help strengthen the country's resilience to food crises, and support to reforms that will help improve nutritional outcomes.
A $130 million loan for Tunisia, seeking to lessen the impact of the Ukraine war by financing vital soft wheat imports and providing emergency support to cover barley imports for dairy production and seeds for smallholder farmers for the upcoming planting season.
The $2.3 billion Food Systems Resilience Program for Eastern and Southern Africa, helps countries in Eastern and Southern Africa increase the resilience of the region’s food systems and ability to tackle growing food insecurity. The program will enhance inter-agency food crisis response also boost medium- and long-term efforts for resilient agricultural production, sustainable development of natural resources, expanded market access, and a greater focus on food systems resilience in policymaking.

The World Bank Group is helping countries boost food and nutrition security through:

Africa

In Rwanda, the Sustainable Agricultural Intensification and Food Security Project received additional financing to help address the impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns. The Bank’s existing Social Protection project was also adjusted to be COVID-19 responsive.
In Senegal, a $150 million IDA credit is helping increase exports of high-value crops such as shelled groundnuts and horticultural products, increase dairy farming productivity, and reduce the mortality rate of small ruminants, mitigating the negative impacts of the pandemic while investing in more productive and resilient practices.
In Sierra Leone, emergency financing under the ongoing Smallholder Commercialization and Agribusiness Development Project is supporting government COVID-19 response initiatives with inputs, land mechanization services, and extension services to support rice farmers. The World Bank-financed Social Safety Net Project also scaled up its cash transfer system to provide support to the most vulnerable households.
In Chad, $30 million in emergency financing was mobilized to provide food assistance through the free distribution of food kits to 437,000 vulnerable people experiencing severe food and nutritional insecurity located in both urban and rural areas and provided seeds and small agricultural equipment to 25,000 poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers to preserve their productive capacity for the imminent growing season.
In 2021, the Bank approved a $570 million regional program in West Africa to improve food system resilience, promote intraregional value chains, and build regional capacity to manage agricultural risks.

East Asia and Pacific

In China, since 2014, a Bank-supported project has helped expand climate-smart agriculture. Better water-use efficiency on 44,000 hectares of farmland and new technologies have improved soil conditions and boosted production of rice by 12% and maize by 9%. More than 29,000 farmers’ cooperatives report higher incomes and increased climate resilience.
In the Philippines, since 2015, the Bank helped raise rural incomes, enhance farm and fishery productivity, improve market access and mainstream institutional and operational reforms, as well as science-based planning for agricultural commodities in 81 provinces. The project has benefitted a total of 323,501 people–46% of them women–with farm roads, irrigation, and agricultural enterprise projects, boosting incomes by up to 36%.

Europe and Central Asia

In Tajikistan, through an existing Targeted Social Assistance system, the Bank financed cash transfers to food-insecure households with children under the age of 3 to mitigate the effects of increases in food prices and to protect children’s nutrition.
In the Kyrgyz Republic, the World Bank-supported, GAFSP-funded Agricultural Productivity and Nutrition Improvement Project, which focuses primarily on improving water infrastructure and developing the capacity of water users' associations (WUAs), distributed US$1.1 million in agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizer through 30 project WUAs to address vulnerable populations.

Latin America and Caribbean

In Guatemala, the Responding to COVID-19: Modern and Resilient Agri-food Value Chains project aims to provide emergency response to COVID-19 and increase economic and climate resilience by improving the efficiency of key agricultural value chains and investing in modern technologies and practices.
In Haiti, the Resilient Productive Landscape project mobilized emergency funding to help over 16,000 farmers access seeds and fertilizer and safeguard production for the next two cropping seasons.

Middle East and North Africa

In Tunisia, the Bank helped 113 remote rural villages improve land management practices on 37,000 hectares of land to increase productivity and improve 930 kilometers of rural roads serving some 160 villages.

South Asia

In Bangladesh, an Emergency Action Plan, mobilized as part of a Livestock Dairy Development project, provided US$87.8 million in cash transfers to 407,000 vulnerable dairy and poultry farmers to support their businesses. Financing also went towards providing personal protection equipment, farm equipment and enhanced veterinary services through the procurement of 64 mobile veterinary clinics.
In India, women's self-help groups, supported under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission co-financed by the World Bank, mobilized to meet shortages in masks and sanitizers, run community kitchens and restore fresh food supplies, provide food and support to vulnerable and high-risk families, provide financial services in rural areas, and disseminate COVID-19 advisories among rural communities. These self-help groups, built over a period of 15 years, tap the skills of about 62 million women across India.