The Transmission of Global Food Commodity Shocks to Food Inflation in Africa: Evidence from the Russia–Ukraine War

The Transmission of Global Food Commodity Shocks to Food Inflation in Africa: Evidence from the Russia–Ukraine War

International Economics / Development Economics - Food Prices, Commodity Shocks and Economic Resilience

Jun-Aug 2026

Daniel Whitehouse, Prof Natalie Chen

The Russia--Ukraine war disrupted global food commodity markets, raising concerns over food prices and food security across Africa. This study examines whether countries with greater pre-war dependence on cereal imports from Russia and Ukraine experienced larger increases in domestic food inflation following the outbreak of the conflict, and whether transmission varied with economic development. Using a monthly panel of 25 African economies from January 2017 to September 2025, the study employs a Difference-in-Differences framework exploiting cross-country variation in pre-war import dependence. Country and month fixed effects account for unobserved heterogeneity and common global shocks, while exchange-rate movements are included as a control. Robustness is assessed using alternative treatment definitions, fixed-effects specifications, placebo tests and leave-one-country-out estimation. The baseline results provide limited evidence that pre-war dependence on Russian and Ukrainian cereal imports systematically increased domestic food inflation following the outbreak of the war. However, substantial heterogeneity emerges across countries. Higher economic development is associated with significantly smaller increases in food inflation. Further analysis indicates that supplier concentration and domestic cereal production capacity help explain this resilience. Overall, the findings suggest that structural characteristics, rather than import dependence alone, shape countries' resilience to global food commodity shocks.

Economics, Food inflation, Food prices, Commodity price shocks, Russia-Ukraine war, Africa, Economic development, Food security, Cereal imports, Import dependence, Economic resilience, Difference-in-Differences, International economics