Food security in conflict and peacebuilding settings: beyond a humanitarian concern

Abstract

The article provides a global overview of the food security and conflict situation and discusses the two-way relationship between violent conflict and food security. On the one hand, violent conflict directly impacts food systems, affecting people’s ability to produce, trade, and access food. On the other, heightened food insecurity can contribute to the emergence and duration of conflict. The pathways leading from violent conflict to food insecurity or from food insecurity to conflict are highly complex and deeply contextual. The article draws from major current conflict settings to illustrate these complexities, including the unfolding armed conflict in Ukraine, with implications for food security felt far beyond the conflict-affected areas. The article concludes by arguing that there is an urgent need for incorporating a peace and conflict lens when conceptualising food security to promote a more holistic response across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding spheres to the rapidly increasing levels of food insecurity. In doing so, it is fundamental to consider agency within a framing of food security. This factor is largely missing from the dominant technocratic or purely economic understanding of food security.