Food and peace? Exploring the link between conflict and food insecurity in Africa

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on the costs of conflict, focusing on the important channel of its effect on food security. It does this by examining whether people in conflict zones lack sufficient food and whether this can be directly attributed to armed conflicts. It uses the Afrobarometer household survey and data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) for conflict indicators, specifically, the number of battle-related events at the regional level. The dataset spans 2012–2022 across 29 African countries. The effect of battle-related events (i.e. battle deaths) on food insecurity is evaluated using a two-way fixed effect and a weighted regression framework that directly addresses unobserved heterogeneity. The model shows that a rise in battle-related events in a region leads to increased food insecurity and this result is found to be robust. When more intense food insecurity is considered, conflict is also found to have an even larger effect. This provides evidence that conflict has a significant impact on food security in Africa. This has important health implications and adds to the evidence of the important legacy costs of conflict that can last long after the conflict ends