Nutrition, Governance and Violence: A Framework for the Analysis of Resilience and Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in Contexts of Violent Conflict

Abstract

Violent conflict affects the lives, livelihoods and health of almost 1.5 billion people in the world . The number of armed conflicts has declined in recent years, but few post-conflict countries have reached a situation of stability and credible peace. Feeding and protecting citizens is a major challenge in these contexts. Many individuals and households leave areas of more intense fighting to refugee and displacement camps, migrate to safer urban areas or move abroad. At the same time, numerous people live in conflict areas and survive, sometimes for decades, carrying on their daily lives in the midst of conflict and violence.

People that live in areas of enduring conflict display various degrees of resilience: some do well out of conflict, some live in conditions of fear and extreme destitution and others simply get by. Levels of resilience depend on a series of factors both within and outside of the control of those affected by conflict. These factors can be grouped into: (i) the magnitude and duration of the effects of violence; (ii) the type of coping strategies that people are able (or allowed) to access; and (iii) the effectiveness of the strategies adopted to cope with the effects of conflict and violence.

The main aim of this paper is to analyse these mechanisms based on available empirical evidence, and discuss how this evidence can be best incorporated into international and national interventions aimed at securing the access to food and livelihoods by individuals, households and communities affected by violence and conflict.