The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has launched a tool to assess countries’ food security. The new Food Security Index captures performance in terms of food availability, access, utilization, and sustainability, to determine not only which countries are food insecure, but also why, enabling informed policy responses.

The underlying report is titled, ‘Food Security in a Warming World: Who is at Risk, Why and What Comes Next?’ It points to the inadequacy of most existing food security measures, such as: prevalence of undernourishment, which focuses on calorie adequacy; measures that combine undernourishment with child outcomes and mortality; crisis tools, including the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, that lack the ability to provide a cross-country structural view while taking into account future climate scenarios; or composite indices that do not cover the countries most at risk.

The Food Security Index seeks to address these gaps. It unpacks the climate-food nexus by decoupling the constraints of supply (availability) from purchasing power (access), health and sanitation (utilization), and the ability to withstand shocks (sustainability).

The report finds that food insecurity is unevenly spread. “While the global average score is 6.74/10, Iceland scores 9.26 at the top, and Somalia, at the bottom, is just 1.29,” it notes. It projects a 42% decline in the score for low-income countries under a 4°C warming scenario, while developed countries’ score is projected to decline by only 6%.

The report estimates that each additional USD 1,000 of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita adds approximately 0.2 points to a country’s food security score, with the caveat that while higher GDP is strongly linked to better food availability and utilization, economic growth alone doesn’t strengthen resilience.

In its analysis of the Group of 7 (G7), the report notes that none of its members have reached the global top five. With the highest global average, Germany scored 8.86. “The US saw the largest climate-driven drops at 1.5°C and 2°C (-0.20, -0.44),” according to the report.

The report argues that responses to food security challenges cannot revolve around agricultural production alone. It calls for systemic change to:

• Build anticipatory, shock-responsive social protection;
• Keep delivery systems running during shocks, especially where access is affected by insecurity and climate-induced displacement;
• Connect early warning to early action by activating support before markets and nutrition outcomes plummet; and
• Ensure predictable early finance for high-risk countries.

The report was released on 23 March 2026. [Publication: Food Security in a Warming World: Who is at Risk, Why and What Comes Next?] [Publication Landing Page] [Country Rankings] [IIED Article]