Food security is an increasingly central issue in the global well-being debate, as reflected in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger. Cereals, including wheat, maize, barley, and rice, are among the main sources of caloric intake worldwide and thus play a key role in ensuring food security. However, global value chains (GVCs) for cereals are exposed to increasingly frequent and intense shocks, such as climate change and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which highlight their vulnerability and underscore the urgent need to study their resilience. Resilience here is understood as the capacity of a supply chain to withstand, adapt to, and recover from shocks, an essential factor for preventing food crises, especially in the world’s most vulnerable regions. This study aims to critically analyze the methods currently available in the literature for measuring resilience in GVCs, assessing their specific applicability to the cereal sector and identifying avenues for future development. Through a systematic literature review conducted on Scopus, studies proposing resilience assessment tools were selected and classified according to shared methodological principles. The findings reveal a wide range of methodologies employed; nonetheless, despite growing interest, there is a significant gap in the concrete and targeted application of these tools for evaluating resilience in cereal GVCs. To address this gap, the study proposes a new resilience evaluation model based on an integrated approach that combines production data, trade flows, and structural risk indicators. The model was validated using data on wheat in Egypt, demonstrating its ability to provide a more specific and operational measure of resilience, capturing the compensatory dynamics between domestic production and imports. Thus, the proposed model constitutes an original contribution to the literature, offering an innovative tool to deepen understanding and management of resilience in food GVCs, with particular attention to the MENA region.
La sicurezza alimentare è un tema sempre più centrale nel dibattito sul benessere globale, come dimostrato dal secondo obiettivo di sviluppo sostenibile (Sustainable Development Goals) dell’Agenda 2030 delle Nazioni Unite: Zero Hunger. I cereali, tra cui grano, mais, orzo e riso, rappresentano una delle principali fonti di approvvigionamento calorico a livello mondiale e sono quindi elementi chiave per garantire la sicurezza alimentare. Le catene del valore globale (GVCs) dei cereali, tuttavia, sono esposte a shock sempre più frequenti e intensi, come il cambiamento climatico e il conflitto tra Russia e Ucraina, che ne evidenziano la vulnerabilità e rendono ancora più urgente la necessità di studiarne la resilienza, intesa come la capacità di una catena di resistere, adattarsi e riprendersi dagli shock, fondamentale per prevenire crisi alimentari, soprattutto nelle aree più vulnerabili del mondo. Il presente lavoro si propone di analizzare criticamente i metodi attualmente disponibili nella letteratura per misurare la resilienza nelle GVCs, valutandone l’applicabilità specifica al settore dei cereali e individuando spunti per possibili sviluppi futuri. Attraverso una Systematic Literature Review condotta su Scopus, sono stati selezionati e classificati gli studi che propongono strumenti di valutazione della resilienza, raggruppandoli in base a principi metodologici comuni. I risultati mostrano un ampio spettro di metodologie utilizzate, ma nonostante questo interesse crescente, emerge una significativa lacuna nell’applicazione concreta e mirata di tali strumenti per valutare la resilienza delle GVCs dei cereali. Per colmare questo vuoto, il lavoro propone un nuovo modello di valutazione della resilienza, basato su un approccio integrato che combina dati produttivi, flussi commerciali e indicatori di rischio strutturale. Il modello è stato validato utilizzando i dati relativi al grano in Egitto, dimostrando la sua capacità di offrire una misura più specifica e operativa della resilienza, capace di cogliere le dinamiche di compensazione tra produzione interna e importazioni. Il modello proposto rappresenta quindi un contributo originale alla letteratura, offrendo uno strumento innovativo per approfondire la comprensione e la gestione della resilienza nelle GVCs alimentari, con particolare attenzione alla regione MENA.
Resilience assessment in global agri-food value chains: a focus on the MENA region
CATALANO, ANDREA
2024/2025
Abstract
Food security is an increasingly central issue in the global well-being debate, as reflected in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger. Cereals, including wheat, maize, barley, and rice, are among the main sources of caloric intake worldwide and thus play a key role in ensuring food security. However, global value chains (GVCs) for cereals are exposed to increasingly frequent and intense shocks, such as climate change and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which highlight their vulnerability and underscore the urgent need to study their resilience. Resilience here is understood as the capacity of a supply chain to withstand, adapt to, and recover from shocks, an essential factor for preventing food crises, especially in the world’s most vulnerable regions. This study aims to critically analyze the methods currently available in the literature for measuring resilience in GVCs, assessing their specific applicability to the cereal sector and identifying avenues for future development. Through a systematic literature review conducted on Scopus, studies proposing resilience assessment tools were selected and classified according to shared methodological principles. The findings reveal a wide range of methodologies employed; nonetheless, despite growing interest, there is a significant gap in the concrete and targeted application of these tools for evaluating resilience in cereal GVCs. To address this gap, the study proposes a new resilience evaluation model based on an integrated approach that combines production data, trade flows, and structural risk indicators. The model was validated using data on wheat in Egypt, demonstrating its ability to provide a more specific and operational measure of resilience, capturing the compensatory dynamics between domestic production and imports. Thus, the proposed model constitutes an original contribution to the literature, offering an innovative tool to deepen understanding and management of resilience in food GVCs, with particular attention to the MENA region.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/240700