Despite the growing political consensus on the importance of improving food and nutrition security there is less consensus on the way forward. As food and nutrition security is a complex and multifaceted issue, one of the main challenges in improving food and nutrition security is to understand its drivers. There exists a large body of literature investigating the long-term causes and drivers of food and nutrition security. This note briefly summarizes key findings of research in FOODSECURE on some of the drivers that are still poorly understood - the role of political institutions and reforms and culture, religion and traditional knowledge - and relates these to the existing literature on the determinants of food and nutrition security and the role of domestic and international policies.