Inclusive Finance For Food Security & Nutrition: Lessons and Best Practices from the European Microfinance Award 2023

By Sam Mendelson, November 2023.

'Inclusive Finance for Food Security & Nutrition: Lessons and Best Practices from the European Microfinance Award 2023' opens  with an outline of the scale of the challenge, and how and why food  insecurity is increasing again, after decades of progress. In the  opening section, the paper introduces the definition of food insecurity  and its drivers, framed within the context of sustainable food systems.  Food (in)security is not a binary state but rather sits on a continuum,  and can be conceptualised in various ways, but among them is the FAO’s  Four Dimensions - Availability, Access, Utilisation, & Stability –  around which the next section of the paper is structured. Framed broadly  within these four dimensions, and featuring boxes on partnerships,  technology and regulation, among others, case studies of the ten  semi-finalists from the EMA 2023 (and among them the three finalists)  are presented. The paper concludes with a section entitled ‘factors for  success’, which condenses some of the common features of these  outstanding applicant organisations and their initiatives – as well as  observing where there are gaps which financial inclusion organisations  can best address.