In a speech published by the UK Government at the launch of the 10th Global Report on Food Crises, Development Minister Chapman said conflict remains one of the main drivers of severe hunger and malnutrition. The intervention was framed as both a warning on worsening conditions and a call for a different policy response, with greater weight placed on evidence, prevention and shared delivery. The minister said more people are now facing severe hunger and food insecurity, and argued that the international system has not yet adjusted at the speed required. The UK's decision to join the Global Network Against Food Crises was presented as part of that response, with the report's evidence base expected to inform how funding and operational choices are made.
Chapman linked the current pressure on food systems to a wider deterioration in global stability, citing the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine as examples of conflicts that are disrupting production, trade and household livelihoods. The speech also pointed to climate pressures and economic shocks as compounding factors, particularly where countries are already dealing with long-running insecurity and weak public systems. According to the report cited in the speech, more than 80 per cent of people facing severe hunger live in places affected by protracted conflict, fragility and crisis. That matters because the countries carrying the largest food security burden are often the same countries where markets, transport routes, public services and farming systems are least able to absorb another shock.
The minister also pointed to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a fresh source of risk for food prices. In the Government's account, the concern is not limited to shipping disruption itself but to the knock-on effect on fuel and fertiliser costs, which can feed quickly into farm input prices, freight charges and retail food prices. Chapman said the United Nations does not view a global food price crisis as inevitable, but warned that prolonged disruption would increase that risk. Countries dependent on Gulf fertiliser imports, including parts of Asia, were described as exposed, while many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were identified as especially vulnerable to higher fuel and transport costs. The speech noted that finance institutions discussed a surge response at the World Bank Spring Meetings, but said existing tools matter only if they are used in time.
A central message in the speech was that donors and multilateral institutions need to act earlier rather than waiting for a full humanitarian emergency to form. Chapman argued that the long-stated case for resilience has still not produced the scale of change needed, despite broad agreement across the sector. The policy test set out by the minister was practical: strengthen systems before risks escalate, protect livelihoods, and support climate adaptation so that a shock does not automatically become a food crisis. Food Crisis Preparedness Plans were presented as one route for doing that. Chapman cited a recent global roundtable, co-chaired with Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister, as an example of a country-led early warning approach that can improve co-ordination and save lives, even if it does not solve the funding gap on its own.
The speech also called for tighter prioritisation of scarce resources. Chapman said better use of forecasts and earlier targeting of money could reduce immediate suffering while also lowering future need, instead of repeating a cycle in which support arrives only after conditions have sharply deteriorated. That argument amounted to a direct criticism of siloed working across the humanitarian and development system. The minister said institutional behaviour must change if agencies are to stop duplicating effort and missing chances for prevention. For officials and funders, that points to earlier disbursement, stronger use of risk data and more disciplined choices about where limited funding has the greatest effect.
Chapman's third point was that long-term food insecurity cannot be managed through short-term project finance alone. Humanitarian assistance, she said, remains essential for saving lives, but it cannot substitute for sustained investment that reduces risk, supports recovery and addresses the political and economic causes of repeated crisis. To make that case, the minister referred to a recent exchange with Uganda's Finance Minister, who argued that international partners often return to the same problem with the same short funding cycles and then ask why little has changed. Chapman said the answer requires stronger engagement from climate funds and international financial institutions in fragile states, alongside a broader use of diplomatic, scientific, peacekeeping and trade expertise where food insecurity is tied to conflict and displacement.
The speech ended with a case for broader and more balanced partnerships. Chapman said no single government or institution can close the gap between need and available resource, and that effective action depends on closer work between governments, multilateral bodies, civil society, the private sector and affected communities. Local leadership was presented as the decisive principle. An upcoming Global Partnerships Conference, being organised with British International Investment, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation and South Africa, was cited as an attempt to put that principle into practice. The wider message was that the Global Report on Food Crises should not sit only as an annual evidence exercise: in the Government's view, it should help turn analysis into earlier action, longer-term finance and more credible co-ordination in places where food insecurity now threatens development, stability and peace.