This Food Policy Report explains why there is a need to place even higher priority on food security–related policies and programs in conflict-prone countries, and offers insights for policymakers regarding how to do so.
This paper is one of the key products of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-funded project Decreasing Vulnerability to Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa through Rural Development, co-financed by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM).
To understand the relationship between conflict and food security, this report builds a new conceptual framework of food security and applies it to four case studies on Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. It argues that food security–related policies and programs build resilience to conflict insofar as they are expected not only to help countries and people cope with and recover from conflict but also to contribute to preventing conflicts and support economic development more broadly: by helping countries and people become even better off.
There are a number of steps policymakers can take to design and implement policies that enhance food security and build resilience to conflict:
See PDF of the report
Cross-posted with minor modifications from IFPRI