Building Resilience to Conflict through Food Security Policies and Programs: An Overview


Publisher: International Food Policy Research Institute

Author(s): Clemens Breisinger, Olivier Ecker, Jean-Francois Maystadt, Jean-Francois Trinh Tan, Perrihan Al-Riffai, Khalida Bouzar, Abdelkarim Sma, and Mohamed Abdelgadir

Date: 2014

Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Conflict Prevention, Renewable Resources

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One and a half billion people still live in fragile, conflict‐ affected areas. People in these countries are about twice as likely to be malnourished and to die during infancy as people in other developing countries. This outcome is often a direct consequence of conflict: conflict reduces food availability by destroying agricultural assets and infrastructure. Conflict also often destroys physical infrastructure and increases the security risks associated with accessing food markets, thus driving up local food prices. This negative impact on food availability is accompanied by conflicts’ detrimental impacts on household‐level food security, particularly on key determinants of food insecurity such as nutrition, health, and education.