CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SECURITY NEXUS IN VULNERABLE REGIONS: A NARRATIVE REVIEW OF IMPACTS, ADAPTATION, AND POLICY RESPONSES

Abstract

In climate-sensitive areas, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Small Island Developing States, where climatic exposure interacts with socioeconomic inequality and limited adaptive capacity, climate change has become a serious threat to food security. The lack of a framework that explains how climatic hazards are communicated through all four dimensions of food security and how adaptation outcomes are conditioned by governance is the unique conceptual gap, notwithstanding the expansion of research. The evidence on climate consequences, adaptation tactics, and policy responses is critically synthesised in this narrative review. Predefined Boolean search phrases were used to find peer-reviewed English language journal articles published between 2015 and 2025 that were indexed in Scopus. Full texts were evaluated as needed after titles and abstracts were checked; non-journal publications and research unrelated to the relationship between food security and climate change were not included. The literature was categorised into four interrelated themes: policy, governance, and implementation; access, nutrition, and uneven vulnerability; adaptation and resilience; and disruptions to availability and stability. The synthesis shows that through interacting biophysical, market, nutritional, and institutional processes, climate change impacts all four aspects of food security: availability, access, utilisation, and stability. Finance, information and extension services, inclusive involvement, institutional capacity, and cogent cross-sectoral policy all contribute to the effectiveness of climate-smart agriculture, livelihood diversification, and resilient infrastructure. The review offers an integrated paradigm for climate change, food security, adaptation, and governance that connects structural vulnerability and hazards to distinct food security outcomes and positions adaptation and governance as interdependent mediators. This approach offers a foundation for context-sensitive research and policy and explains why technically comparable interventions provide varied results in different circumstances. Relying just on Scopus may leave out grey literature and pertinent studies that are indexed elsewhere.