TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of food-related conflicts on self-reported food insecurity
AU - Fiandrino, Stefania
AU - Dowd, Caitriona
AU - Martini, Giulia
AU - Mejova, Yelena
AU - Omodei, Elisa
AU - Paolotti, Daniela
AU - Tizzani, Michele
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 Fiandrino, Dowd, Martini, Mejova, Omodei, Paolotti and Tizzani.
PY - 2023/10/12
Y1 - 2023/10/12
N2 - Food security is recognized as an inherent human right, enshrined within the principles of the Agenda 2030. The Global Report of Food Crises 2022 points out 193 million people facing severe food insecurity across 53 countries, posing challenges to decision-makers and institutions. Among the many causes of food crises, violent conflict, economic shocks, and environmental pressures are the most influential. In this work, we focus primarily on the conflict-related domain. Finding a stable relationship between conflict and food insecurity is complex for several reasons: first, the relationship is mutually reinforcing; second, the full impact of conflict on food insecurity may take time to have an effect; and third, conflict itself is a multidimensional phenomenon and can include multiple types of violent events. This research set out to comparatively assess the impact of different types of violence on self-reported food insecurity in three prominent food crisis contexts: Burkina Faso, Syria, and Yemen. A measure of food-related classifying events was developed using a rules-based approach. The analysis showed that this approach can effectively code and classify food-related conflict in diverse contexts. By refining the search string, it becomes possible to capture food-related conflict in various food systems. Our findings point out that the new-build measure of food-related conflict is more strongly correlated to subsequent self-reported insufficient food consumption than other forms of violence. The results demonstrate that this relationship is robust across a range of data collection windows and across discrete time periods of analysis. In summary, the research suggests that focusing on the use of food and food systems as tactics in conflict can be highly valuable for understanding and addressing food insecurity.
AB - Food security is recognized as an inherent human right, enshrined within the principles of the Agenda 2030. The Global Report of Food Crises 2022 points out 193 million people facing severe food insecurity across 53 countries, posing challenges to decision-makers and institutions. Among the many causes of food crises, violent conflict, economic shocks, and environmental pressures are the most influential. In this work, we focus primarily on the conflict-related domain. Finding a stable relationship between conflict and food insecurity is complex for several reasons: first, the relationship is mutually reinforcing; second, the full impact of conflict on food insecurity may take time to have an effect; and third, conflict itself is a multidimensional phenomenon and can include multiple types of violent events. This research set out to comparatively assess the impact of different types of violence on self-reported food insecurity in three prominent food crisis contexts: Burkina Faso, Syria, and Yemen. A measure of food-related classifying events was developed using a rules-based approach. The analysis showed that this approach can effectively code and classify food-related conflict in diverse contexts. By refining the search string, it becomes possible to capture food-related conflict in various food systems. Our findings point out that the new-build measure of food-related conflict is more strongly correlated to subsequent self-reported insufficient food consumption than other forms of violence. The results demonstrate that this relationship is robust across a range of data collection windows and across discrete time periods of analysis. In summary, the research suggests that focusing on the use of food and food systems as tactics in conflict can be highly valuable for understanding and addressing food insecurity.
KW - conflict
KW - data science
KW - food insecurity
KW - food-related conflict
KW - social impact
KW - sustainable development goals
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85174895438&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1239992
DO - 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1239992
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85174895438
SN - 2571-581X
VL - 7
JO - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
JF - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
M1 - 1239992
ER -