Food systems worldwide are increasingly exposed to climate extremes, conflicts, pandemics, and economic shocks, raising concerns about their capacity to safeguard food security. Although resilience is now central in global policy debates, empirical evidence on what actually enables national food systems to withstand shocks remains limited.
Here, we analyse a unique multi-country dataset combining Food Systems Countdown Initiative indicators with measures of shock exposure, governance, economic capacity, trade dependence, and social conditions. Using a causal resilience-as-capacity framework and hybrid econometric models, we assess how structural factors and emergent system properties shape countries’ ability to limit rises in undernourishment during shocks.
We show that higher exposure to shocks does not systematically lead to worse food security: several highly exposed countries—particularly in Asia—maintain improving outcomes despite recurrent disturbances. Instead, within-country improvements in GDP per capita, government effectiveness, and food-supply redundancy significantly reduce peaks in undernourishment, while cross-country comparisons indicate that stronger social capital supports long-term resilience. Conversely, persistent food price volatility consistently heightens vulnerability.
These results place national resilience within a broader global context and provide rare empirical confirmation of theorized resilience drivers. Strengthening institutional effectiveness, enhancing redundancy, and investing in social capital emerge as critical pathways for building resilient food systems in an increasingly shock-prone world.
BÉNÉ Chris;
SASSO Alessandro;
ABDULA Abdul-Rahim;
BATTERSBY Jane;
CATTANEO Andrea;
COLLINS Greg;
EVEN Brice;
FRANKERBERGE Timothy;
FANZO Jessica;
GUARIN Alejandro;
GEPHART Jessica A.;
GOLDEN Christopher D.;
HENDRICKS Sheryl;
HERRERO Mario;
LANG Tim;
LIDDER Preetmoninder;
MAITRE D’HOTEL Elodie;
NGUYEN Trang;
NGUYEN Manh Cuong;
NOWAK Andreea;
NYIAWUNG Richard;
DE STEENHUIJSEN PITERS Bart;
SAISANA Michaela;
SUMAILA Rashid;
VIVERO-POL Jose-Luis;
LAL Rattan;
WEBB Patrick;
ZHANG Jing;
2026-09-16
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
JRC144816
1091-6490 (online),
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2536118123,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC144816,
10.1073/pnas.2536118123 (online),
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