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I am from Ghana, and in 2019 I was awarded the prestigious and highly competitive Commonwealth Split-site PhD Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge. My doctoral research focuses on the use of renewable and sustainable techniques for environmental remediation, specifically for water purification (and also for...

COVID-19 has shown the fragilities of our food systems, challenging business to adapt and showing the importance of local communities. How can we build and maintain a resilient food system? This webinar, held on 29 June 2020, was hosted by Dr Jag Srai, Co-Chair of the Cambridge Global Food Security IRC. Speakers included...

While walking through the mud among the improvised tented shelters of an informal camp housing Syrian refugees in Jordan, I was approached by a desperate mother and her young disabled son. Amina showed me a hand-written prescription of the medication she needed but had been unable to obtain, after losing access to medical assistance. As the war in Syria drags on, humanitarian actors have shifted from emergency response towards longer term development aid, affecting the assistance available to people living outside formal refugee camps.

By 2050 the global population is expected to increase up to 9.8 billion people (UNDESA, 2017). Accordingly, food production will have to increase by 60 percent for food requirements to be met (FAO, 2015). This poses a big challenge for food systems as they have to achieve this sustainably. With the global scenario having changed drastically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these already existing food security concerns have been heightened. The pandemic threatens to add to the 820 million people living in chronic hunger, as the measures adopted to stop the spread can hinder food production as well as people’s ability to purchase food.