_ANDR EE_<sup>_ ́_</sup> _SEPTEMBER 28, 2022_ _6_ tail risks up to 3 years ahead. The current paper essentially proposes a middle ground between the work of Wang et al. (2020, 2022) and Andr ́ee et al. (2020), combining the multi-year outlook properties provided by the first approach and the predictive optimization of the latter, while aiming for global coverage such as attempted by Martini et al. (2021); Foini et al. (2022).

The importance of maintaining current outlooks on global food security developments, along with mechanisms to update and revise projections systematically and timely, is likely to increase in coming years as many drivers of food insecurity are projected to worsen into the 21st century. Success in poverty reduction has largely coincided with substantial loss of pristine natural environments (Stern et al., 1996; Andr ́ee et al., 2019a). Degraded environments, more frequent climatic extremes, and a continuously growing population will continue to put pressure on future agricultural systems (Grainger, 1990; Ingram et al., 2010; Myers et al., 2017; Diogo et al., 2017). These developments put the rural poor that rely on local natural assets for income and food consumption particularly at risk (Duraiappah, 1998; Barrett and Bevis, 2015; Barbier and Hochard, 2018).

# **II. Data and Methods**

# _A. Target Variable_

The analysis targets the prevalence (rate) of severe food insecurity. This metric is derived from the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) and is used to monitor progress toward the UN’s SDG of Zero Hunger by tracking food insecurity at three levels: food security, moderate food insecurity, and severe food insecurity.<sup>5</sup> This data is available for individual countries from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) as 3-year centered moving averages. The FAO also publishes annual figures, but only at an aggregated level.

The prevalence of severe food insecurity is defined as the percentage of people in the population who live in households classified as severely food insecure. A household is classified as severely food insecure when at least one adult in the household in the last 12 months has reported to have been forced to reduce the quantity of the food consumed, to have skipped meals, having gone hungry, or having to go for a whole day without eating because of a lack of money or other resources. This food insecurity metric captures a chronic definition of food insecurity, and differs from acute measures such as the percentage of people that are in food crisis, and thus unable to meet minimum dietary needs without adopting irreversible coping strategies that have long-term impacts.<sup>6</sup> The severely food insecure population is however the wider population that is at risk of becoming acutely food insecure and is thus of particular interest to prevention and

> 5The population shares that experience each level of food insecurity are estimated based on survey responses to eight yes/no questions about access to adequate food; see details by Cafiero et al. (2018).

> 6Chronic food insecurity is broadly speaking the result of overwhelming poverty while acute food insecurity may be considered to be more of a short-term phenomenon related either to man-made or natural shocks, such as drought, that often hit while chronic food insecurity has already become prevalent.