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FamineWatch at Columbia advances open, transparent early-warning analysis to help identify emerging food security risks sooner and support coordinated, proactive response. We bring together researchers, students, and humanitarian practitioners to develop tools that make complex data easier to interpret, compare, and communicate.

Our approach is demand-driven: instead of producing more indicators, we work with regional, national, and local partners to understand what decisions they need to make, and we shape information products around those real decision points.

Our work focuses on systemic risk — the way climate stress, market pressures, conflict, and government policy controls can interact to create cascading impacts on food security. We integrate these factors into a shared platform that highlights gradual shifts in conditions before they escalate. Rather than introducing a new classification system, FamineWatch complements existing early-warning efforts, including FEWS NET and IPC processes, by providing clearer situational context and documented reasoning behind changing risk patterns.

Food insecurity often varies sharply across subnational levels. For this reason, FamineWatch is developing approaches that allow analysis at the scale of local markets, transport corridors, and movement constraints, where famine risk is most acute. As data availability improves, the platform is designed to progressively increase spatial resolution, supporting partners who work closest to affected communities.

We are building a collaborative research coalition that links global analytical rigor with regional expertise and local knowledge. This networked approach supports consistent methodology while ensuring that context-specific signals are recognized and understood.

We welcome researchers, institutions, and partners interested in improving how we monitor and respond to food insecurity – together.

Please contact Professor Michael Puma for more information.