Crisis resilience: Humanitarian response and anticipatory action

Kurdi, Sikandra; and Ruckstuhl, Sandra. 2023. Crisis resilience: Humanitarian response and anticipatory action. In Global Food Policy Report 2023: Rethinking Food Crisis Responses. Chapter 3, Pp. 36-43. https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294417_03.

In human, economic, and environmental terms, the total cost of disaster and crisis response is extremely high, and the disastrous combination of the food price crises coming on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and natural calamities is straining public budgets and squeezing financial options. In 2020, private and public losses from weather-related disasters alone exceeded a total of US$258 billion globally — 29 percent above the 2001–2020 average — making it the fifth costliest year on record, and rising temperatures are expected to bring even more frequent and severe extreme weather events. At the same time, conflict has become a leading contributor to humanitarian crisis situations — as seen most recently with the food and energy crises precipitated by the Russia-Ukraine war and refugee flows driven by the Syrian civil war.