Launching the 10th Global Report on Food Crises, the UK's Minister for Development said the world is entering a harsher period for hunger, with more people facing severe food insecurity as conflict spreads and recovery stalls. The speech framed food security not as a stand-alone aid issue, but as a test of whether governments can protect food systems before shocks turn into full emergencies. According to the 2026 Global Report on Food Crises, more than 80 per cent of people facing severe hunger live in places marked by protracted conflict, fragility and repeated crisis. Chapman said the UK's role in the Global Network Against Food Crises reflects a need for evidence-led co-ordination, with analysis and joint planning shaping the response rather than another cycle of late reaction.

In that reading of the crisis, conflict remains the main driver, but not the only one. The minister pointed to the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine as examples of how violence can ripple far beyond borders, cutting supply routes, closing markets and putting basic nutrition further out of reach for low-income households. She also warned that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had become a fresh pressure point for the global food economy, pushing up fuel and fertiliser costs and hitting poorer countries first. The speech noted that countries reliant on Gulf fertiliser imports, including parts of Asia, are highly exposed, while many states in sub-Saharan Africa face another round of rising food prices as transport and energy costs climb.

There was, however, a clear refusal to treat this as inevitable. Chapman noted that the UN does not see a global food price crisis as guaranteed, but the message was blunt: the longer these pressures persist, the greater the risk becomes. That leaves policy makers with a narrow window to act before higher input costs, weaker harvests and stretched humanitarian budgets feed into a wider emergency. Her first prescription was earlier action. In room after room, she said, governments and donors agree on the need to invest before disaster hits, yet the promised shift has still not arrived at the scale required. A food system that only responds once families are already hungry is not resilient; it is expensive, slow and unfair.

The speech placed Food Crisis Preparedness Plans at the centre of a better approach. Chapman cited a recent roundtable, co-chaired with Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister, as evidence that country-led early warning can bring donors and agencies together sooner, using data to spot risks, protect livelihoods and support climate adaptation before a shock becomes a humanitarian emergency. That model will not close every funding gap overnight, she acknowledged, but it offers something practical: clearer co-ordination, quicker decisions and a better chance of saving both lives and incomes. In real terms, that means adaptation turning into functioning markets, cash support, local planning, crop protection and farming systems that can absorb pressure without collapsing.

Chapman's second argument was about where money goes and when it arrives. Forecasts, she said, should be used far more effectively so that limited finance reaches the places where it can cut suffering now and reduce the next wave of need. She linked that case to discussions at the World Bank Spring Meetings, where there was a push to ensure support could move quickly when fresh shocks hit. She also called for stronger involvement from climate funds and international financial institutions, particularly in fragile countries that are often locked out of longer-term finance and fairer investment partnerships. Humanitarian grants can keep people alive, but they rarely rebuild irrigation, stabilise local supply chains or reduce dependence on imported fuel and fertiliser. Those are development choices, and they need finance to match.

One of the sharpest points in the speech came from a conversation Chapman said she had with Uganda's finance minister. The message was direct: long-term displacement and food insecurity cannot be met with short-term projects that expire before the structural problem changes. If governments keep arriving with temporary schemes for permanent pressures, the same crisis meetings will keep repeating. That is why the minister argued for a more joined-up response across diplomacy, science, peacekeeping and trade, not only emergency aid. Food security, in this account, is also about the politics of access, the economics of farm inputs and the strength of public institutions. It is harder work than writing another appeal, but it is closer to the scale of the problem.

The closing emphasis was on partnership, with Chapman saying no single government or agency can close the gap between need and available resources. She pointed to collaboration across governments, multilateral institutions, civil society, business and communities, and stressed that local leadership has to shape decisions rather than simply receive them. Her reference to an upcoming Global Partnerships Conference with BII, CIFF and South Africa underlined that argument. The wider lesson is clear. Hunger is being driven by conflict, but it is worsened by climate shocks, fertiliser dependence, weak infrastructure and financing systems that still move too late. The 2026 Global Report on Food Crises offers more than another warning; it sets out a case for earlier investment, fairer partnerships and food systems that can hold under pressure.