Investing in Resilience and Food Security Leads to Peace

Feb 5, 2020 | Abebe Haile-Gabriel
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In a region beset with conflict, the uptick of numbers paint a grim foreboding. Hunger is on the rise again in Africa, reversing the gains and derailing the efforts made in the last few years.

Recent years brought recurrent conflicts in the region. In 2018 alone, there were over 90 conflicts in Africa, a quarter of such occurrences globally. Conflicts in ten African countries left millions of people in need of urgent food assistance and hundreds of thousands to quickly flee their homes and involuntarily abandon their livelihoods.

Most of these livelihoods are dependent on agriculture and the emergence of conflict has life-changing and serious implications. For people who rely on agriculture, conflicts destroy food systems, decimate crops and livestock resources, and cause loss of assets and incomes. These trigger food insecurity, and malnutrition and hunger.