Paper details
| Paper authors | Ellen Messer and Marc J. Cohen |
| In panel on | Famine and Food Insecurity: New Trends and Systems or Politics as usual? |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
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Abstract
Crisis-level acute food insecurity (IPC 3+) is at the highest level ever recorded, and violent conflict is either the principal driver or a key factor in most instances. The number of forcibly displaced people, usually as a result of conflict and political oppression, is likewise at an all-time high, and most of the affected people are vulnerable to food insecurity. At the same time, there is a significant correlation between these hunger-conflict links on the one hand, and dependence on primary product exports on the other. Key export commodities include essential foodstuffs (grains and oilseeds) and export cash crops, as well as extractive industry products. Based on our review of academic, policy, and humanitarian practitioner literature, we compare the political geography of conflict, food insecurity, and globalization in 2002-2003 (when we previously looked at these interrelationships) and 2022-2023. We explore recommendations from reports over the past two decades that addressed food insecurity in conflict situations. We note that the priority emphasis on foreign direct investment, liberalized trade, and less regulated markets as a path from humanitarian assistance to self-reliant food security, equitable economic development, and peace fails to break the links between conflict and hunger or to promote sustainable peace. We consider whether the humanitarian-development-peace triple Nexus has helped to break down the silos separating emergency and longer-term assistance and offers a promising way forward, and what additional actions are required.
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