In recent years, conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes, and rising input and food prices have combined to create repeated food and nutrition security crises across multiple regions. These pressures continue to threaten both acute and chronic food insecurity, with millions of people requiring urgent assistance each year..According to the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises , the number of people in crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent – that is the number of people requiring urgent humanitarian assistance – is forecast to reach up to 295 million people across 53 countries.
Urgent action is necessary to safeguard lives and livelihoods and prevent the reversal of hard-earned development gains. When such crises occur, time is of the essence. The longer it takes to mobilize a response, the more severe a crisis becomes. Vulnerabilities heighten and become protracted, eroding resilience to weather future shocks. Crisis preparedness – the knowledge and capacities to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from the impacts of major shocks – is therefore critical.
To promote greater preparedness to major food and nutrition security crises, the World Bank, in close collaboration with the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC), the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC), and a broad group of 18 signatory organizations spanning multilateral development banks, UN agencies, humanitarian partners, donors, NGOs, and foundations, Q is supporting countries as they develop and operationalize Preparedness Plans for Food and Nutrition Security Crises. The Preparedness Plan is a national operational plan that defines what constitutes a major food and nutrition security crisis for a country. The plan explains how crisis risks are actively monitored and identified and details step-by-step protocols, roles, and timelines for scaled up early action and mobilizing additional funding.
What is the Preparedness Plan for Food and Nutrition Security Crises?
Each national Preparedness Plan brings together fragmented crisis preparedness elements into a cohesive operational framework to support the systematic recognition of an emerging crisis. Once a crisis is recognized, Preparedness Plans will prompt timely, joined-up early action across government, humanitarian, and development partners to prevent and mitigate the impacts of the crisis. Actions build on the strengths of multilateral and bilateral humanitarian and development partners , the Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, as well as the GNAFC and IASC. The Preparedness Plan is guided by seven key principles.
1. Government owned and led
Where possible, the government is at the center of developing and managing the Preparedness Plan across all relevant national and local institutions and agencies. In contexts in which a government may have limited operational capacity, these functions aresupported by the international community – with responsibilities shared across humanitarian and development partners – until the government’s capacity is built.
2. Focused on major food and nutrition security crises
In any given year, a country may face numerous shocks affecting food and nutrition security, some of which may have localized and limited impacts while others can lead to widespread and severe consequences across the country. The Preparedness Plan is focused on these latter shocks which extend beyond and exacerbate existing chronic issues and threaten to lead to major food and nutrition security crises. In the event of such major shocks, it is critical for responses to be mobilized across all support channels, including government, humanitarian, and development partners.
3. Evidence-based
The Preparedness Plan is anchored by rigorous, well vetted, and timely food and nutrition security information and data from a wide variety of sources to provide a comprehensive view of emerging and major risks.
4. Pre-arranged, operations, and timely
The Preparedness Plan moves beyond just risk monitoring activities and requires that three interlinked operational teams be in place. This includes operational arrangements and protocols for:
- quickly identifying and continuously monitoring major food and nutrition security crises;
- convening programmatic leads across government, humanitarian, and development partners in one space to assess emerging risks and scale up early action as needed; and
- convening senior officials to collectively recognize a major crisis, bridge operational and funding gaps, and promote well-coordinated and holistic responses across government and its food and nutrition security partners.
5. Holistic
If a major crisis is identified, activities should be scaled up quickly and coordinated across government, humanitarian, and development partners, utilizing the comparative advantages of all partners to save lives, protect livelihoods, and build resilience to future shocks.
6. Do no harm
The Preparedness Plan carefully takes into consideration country and local contexts and account for how responses may interact with and affect existing economic, political, and social dynamics, especially for the most vulnerable.
7. A living document
Crisis preparedness is a continuous activity requiring steadfast maintenance and investment so that operational arrangements are up to date and can be activated quickly. The Preparedness Plan, therefore, serves as a living document that should be revisited and updated regularly to ensure it remains fit for purpose.
Expert Video Series
- Lavinia Antonaci, Technical Coordinator of the Global Network Against Food Crises
- Tsedeye Girma, Chief Risk Analysis and Preparedness | UNICEF
- Alexandra Horst, World Bank Senior Economist and GAFS Secretariat
- Ronald Jackson, Head of the Disaster Risk Reduction, Recovery for Building Resilience | UNDP
- Kyriacos Koupparis, Head of the Hunger Monitoring Unit | UNWFP
- Julian Lampietti, World Bank Manager, Global Agriculture Practice
- Hugh MacLeman, Head of Country Engagement for the Global Network Against Food Crises | United Nations World Food Programme
- Sara McHattie, Global Coordinator of the Food Security Information Network
- Dr. David Nabarro, Strategic Director of 4SD Foundation and Co-lead of the United Nations Global Crisis Response Group
- Luca Russo, Team Leader in Office of Emergency and Resilience | Food and Agriculture Organization
Operationalizing the FSCPP
The specific operationalization processes will be different in each country based on their respective capacities, needs, and priorities. In contexts with well-established food and nutrition security crisis response systems, Preparedness Plans provide an opportunity to review these systems and further strengthen their crisis preparedness elements. In contexts where existing systems may only partially cover crisis preparedness elements, the Preparedness Plan provides an important means for identifying critical gaps and setting the stage for filling these gaps, including by building government capacity and ownership over time. Government preparations are well advanced, with 29 countries having developed or operationalized Preparedness Plans to date, and additional countries engaging through technical workshops and country-level processes to establish or strengthen their own plans.
Preparedness Plans are directly linked to pre-arranged escalation and coordination mechanisms designed to translate early warning into timely action. When agreed risk thresholds are reached, Global Leadership Roundtables convene senior government officials alongside development and humanitarian partners to review the evidence, collectively assess the severity of emerging risks, and agree on priority actions. Roundtables go beyond information sharing; they are structured coordination forums that help participants develop a common understanding of needs, align responsibilities, and mobilize resources quickly.
Unlike ad hoc crisis meetings, Roundtables are embedded in the preparedness architecture in advance, with defined roles, protocols, and expectations. By bringing technical analysis and senior decision-makers together in one space, the process reduces delays, avoids fragmented responses, and helps ensure that support is deployed early, when it is most effective and least costly. In doing so, Roundtables help countries move from risk awareness to coordinated action, protecting lives, livelihoods, and development gains.
Many countries across the globe will continue facing the threat of food crises. While the last global crisis is exceptional in terms of scale, it is only the latest tipping point for a food system already on the edge. Against this backdrop, crisis preparedness has never been more important. The Preparedness Plan is a key tool to help countries recognize the signs of an emerging food and nutrition security crisis and effectively leverage the contributions of all partners to respond. These efforts will also complement much needed and scaled-up longer-term investments to address their root causes and help break the vulnerability cycle of repeat crises.