The 10th Global Report on Food Crises arrives with a warning that is becoming harder to ignore: severe hunger is rising, and conflict remains one of its main drivers. In the UK government speech launching the report, Minister Chapman said the world is more fragile than it has been in decades, pointing to the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine as clear examples of how instability is feeding food insecurity. The speech treated hunger as more than a failure of supply. Conflict disrupts production, trade and livelihoods, while climate change and economic shocks add extra strain. The result is a food system under repeated pressure, with communities least able to absorb shocks paying the highest price. Chapman said that is why the UK joined the Global Network Against Food Crises and why evidence and coordination have to guide the response.

The Global Report on Food Crises makes the scale of that pattern plain. More than 80 per cent of people facing severe hunger live in places affected by protracted conflict, fragility or recurrent crisis. That is not a side note; it helps explain why emergency responses keep stretching further while lasting progress remains difficult. The report's message also matters for climate policy. A drought, flood or price shock can be devastating on its own, but it becomes far more dangerous where conflict has already weakened markets, transport, farming and public services. Food security, in other words, depends on resilience across the whole system, not only on the next harvest.

Chapman pointed to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as the latest sign of how quickly geopolitical stress can feed into food risk. When fuel and fertiliser prices rise, the pressure moves through supply chains and into household food bills, with the poorest people hit first. The speech noted that the UN does not see a global food price crisis as inevitable, which leaves room for action if governments move quickly. Even so, the risk grows as pressures persist. Countries that depend on Gulf fertiliser imports, including in parts of Asia, are exposed, while many countries in sub-Saharan Africa face an especially sharp squeeze as higher fuel and transport costs push prices higher still.

The most useful part of the speech was its insistence that the response cannot stay reactive. Chapman argued that governments and aid partners have spent years agreeing on the need for early action, yet the large shift in practice has still not arrived. That is the point worth watching now: prevention only matters if budgets, institutions and political choices actually move with the evidence. In practical terms, the minister called for stronger systems that can spot risks early, protect livelihoods and help communities adapt to climate change before a shock turns into a humanitarian emergency. That is a more credible route than waiting for need to peak and then trying to catch up.

Food Crisis Preparedness Plans were presented as one way to make that shift real. Chapman cited a recent global roundtable she co-chaired with Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister, describing it as an example of a country-led approach that uses evidence and early warning to bring partners together sooner. The speech was careful not to oversell the model. Preparedness plans do not remove every financing gap or political blockage. What they can do is improve coordination, strengthen long-term resilience and save more lives by acting before risks harden into full-scale crisis.

The minister's second argument was about using scarce resources better. Forecasts, she said, should shape where funding goes, so support reaches the places where it can reduce suffering now and prevent worse outcomes later. That requires a break from siloed working, which the speech suggested still weakens the overall response. There was also a clear challenge to climate funds and international financial institutions. If fragile countries are facing the sharpest food risks, they cannot be treated as an afterthought in resilience finance. At the World Bank Spring Meetings, Chapman said there was a collective push to make finance ready to surge; the next step is turning that promise into more equitable, joined-up investment partnerships.

The third and perhaps most political point was about time horizons. Humanitarian assistance remains essential, the speech said, but long-running food insecurity cannot be solved with short-term projects alone. Chapman recalled a blunt message from Uganda's finance minister: if the problem is structural and prolonged, the funding response has to reflect that reality. That is why the closing emphasis was on closer work across diplomacy, science, peacekeeping and trade, alongside stronger partnerships with governments, multilateral institutions, civil society, the private sector and communities themselves. Local leadership was presented as non-negotiable. With a Global Partnerships Conference due next month alongside BII, CIFF and South Africa, and with South Africa helping shape the agenda, the UK says it wants to turn that approach into practice. The wider lesson from the Global Report on Food Crises is straightforward: food and nutrition support development, stability and peace, and they need responses built for the long term.