Strengthening Sector Policies for Better Food Security and Nutrition Results – Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (2017)

This note describes the challenges of conducting political economy analysis in relation to food security and nutrition and offers guidance for how these challenges can be overcome by following specific frameworks and tools that are relevant to the local context. This note analyses three country examples, Bangladesh, Eastern Senegal and Malawi, to illustrate the different types of challenges that practitioners face when running political economy analysis. It gives a rapid overview of what political economy analysis is and how it can contribute to making policy support work more successful for improved food security and nutrition outcomes at the country level. This paper also provides practical suggestions for how political economy analysis can be undertaken and used to better understand the political challenges that surround food and agriculture. Through this analysis, this guide suggests that applying political economy analysis to policy support in food security can be of value when facing increasingly complex environments caused by the uneven global economic recovery.