Understanding the Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on Food and Nutrition Security in Zimbabwe

The geopolitical conflict caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine has exacerbated global food security, constraining food systems to feed the poor and vulnerable groups, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Nevertheless, the impact of this war on food and nutrition security, especially in developing countries, remains unexplored. The Russia-Ukraine War has disrupted the supply chains of energy and other basic commodities like fertilisers and food particularly and is thus posing a serious threat against the attainment of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 2, which aims to end hunger and malnutrition. This chapter qualitatively, by means of a systematic literature review, examines the impacts of the Russia-Ukraine War on food and nutrition security in Zimbabwe. The findings show that the war has disproportionately affected most of the actors along the entire food system value chain from the food producers, processors, marketers, distributors, and finally consumers. The paper recommends a cocktail of strategies, including designing and scaling-up effective social protection programmes like food assistance, addressing corruption and partisan distribution of food aid, supporting local food production particularly by the smallholder farmers to boost productivity, managing macro-economic fundamentals and dealing with logistical bottlenecks to keep food system supply chains functional.