Professor Stephen Devereux

• MPhil and DPhil in Economics (Oxford University)
• BA in Economics (University of Cape Town).

Stephen Devereux is a development economist with 30+ years of research and advisory experience in food security, poverty and rural development in 13 African countries, including one year researching household drought responses in a village in northern Ghana, and three years heading a rural research program at the University of Namibia. He is a Professorial Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK, where he co-founded the Centre for Social Protection in 2005 and the Food Equity Centre in 2020. He has published more than 80 journal articles and (co-)authored or (co-)edited 10 books, on food security, famine, seasonality, and social protection. He was a founding associate editor of the journal ‘Food Security’. He has worked for numerous international agencies and provided policy advice to many African governments. He has supervised more than 60 master’s students and 18 PhD students in the UK and South Africa and delivered sessions on over 70 training courses. In 2019 he was awarded a Mercator Fellowship at the University of Bremen in Germany. In 2025 he co-founded the Union Against Hunger in South Africa. Since 2016 he has held a DSTI/NRF Research Chair in Social Protection for Food Security (SARChI), affiliated to the Centre of Excellence in Food Security and the Institute for Social Development (ISD) at the University of the Western Cape.

Equity-informed evidence for policymaking: a case study of the Union Against Hunger in South British Academy.

The ‘normalization’ of Black hunger in South National Research Foundation (SARChI).

Social protection and food systems in Irish Aid.

Famine in Gaza. National Research Foundation (SARChI).

Social protection systems in Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Social protection policy entrepreneurs in Africa. National Research Foundation (SARChI). Resilience and Food Security in a Food Systems Context. National Research Foundation (SARChI). COVID-19 Recovery Framework for Africa. African Union Commission.

The COVID-19 pandemic in the Arab United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA). The appropriateness and feasibility of a system of Basic Income Support for South Africa. Department of Social Development, Republic of South Africa.

Social protection responses to COVID-19 in UNICEF.

Urban livelihood trajectories in Concern Worldwide.

• Devereux, S. (2026). Hunger and starvation. In D. E. Taylor (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Environmental Justice (Vol. 3, pp. 704-706). SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071908006.n210
• Devereux, S. (2025). Resilient people, resilient systems: The essential role of social protection in a polycrisis world. International Social Security Review, 78(2–3), 11–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/issr.70001
• Devereux, S., & Hoddinott, J. (2024). Social protection for food security: Revisiting the 2012 HLPE Report. Policy in Focus. International Policy Centre for Inclusive Development.
• Devereux, S., & Wolkenhauer, A. (2024). Social protection: Aspirations and limitations of an expanding agenda. IDS Bulletin, 55(2), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.19088/1968-2024.118
• Devereux, S. (2023). Performing social policy diffusion: Reflections on agents as social protection policy entrepreneurs in Africa. Global Social Policy, 23(3), 457–480. https://doi.org/10.1177/14680181231194897
• Devereux, S. (2024). Famine. In E. Dauncey, V. Desai, & R. Potter (Eds.), The companion to development studies (4th ed., Chap. 54). Routledge. https://tinyurl.com/46dafu7b
• Devereux, S. (2023). Social protection systems and their linkages. In L. Patel, S. Plagerson, & I. Chinyoka (Eds.), Handbook on social protection and social development in the Global South (pp. 168–187). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800378421.00023
• Devereux, S. (2022). Policy pollination as a causal mechanism explaining social protection adoption in Africa. In J. Kuhlmann & F. Nullmeier (Eds.), Causal mechanisms in the global development of social policies (pp. 203–236). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91088-4_7
• Devereux, S. (2021). Targeting. In M. Loewe & E. Schüring (Eds.), Handbook on social protection systems (pp. 151–163). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839109119.00027
• Devereux, S., & Cuesta, J. (2021). Urban-sensitive social protection: How universalized social protection can reduce urban vulnerabilities post COVID-19. Progress in Development Studies, 21(4), 340–360. https://doi.org/10.1177/14649934211020858
• Devereux, S. (2021). Social protection responses to COVID-19 in Africa. Global Social Policy, 21(3), 421–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/14680181211021260
• Devereux, S. (2020). Preventable famines: Response and coordination failures in twenty-first-century famines. In J. Dijkman & B. van Leeuwen (Eds.), An economic history of famine resilience (pp. 203–223). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429200632-11
• Devereux, S., & Kapingidza, S. (2020). External donors and social protection in Africa: A case study of Zimbabwe. In C. Schmitt (Ed.), From colonialism to international aid: External actors and social protection in the Global South (pp. 273–302). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38200-1_11
• Devereux, S., Béné, C., & Hoddinott, J. (2020). Conceptualising COVID-19’s impacts on household food security. Food Security, 12(4), 769–772. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-020-01085-0
• Devereux, S. (2020). Violations of farm workers’ labour rights in post-apartheid South Africa. Development Southern Africa, 37(3), 382–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2019.1609909
• Béné and S. Devereux (eds), Resilience and Food Security in a Food Systems Context. London: Palgrave Macmillan.