Food Insecurity: A Devastating Consequence—And Weapon—of Conflict

Bottom Line: Behind the curtain of violent conflict often resides a potentially devastating, long-term issue that demands global attention: food insecurity as both a weapon and consequence of war. Militant groups recruit the hungry with promises of the next meal, and states such as North Korea and Syria control food as a mechanism of internal power and psychological warfare. The problem of feeding the world’s hungry – many of whom find themselves in the crossfire of conflict – is only expected to get worse as climates change, populations grow and the rural migrate to booming megacities.

Background: Given the complex relationship between conflict and those experiencing food insecurity, those most in need of emergency assistance often reside in war-torn countries. This year, 489 million people out of the world’s 815 million hungry were located within countries affected by conflict, according to the World Food Program (WFP).

• Affected countries such as Yemen, Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia are in the midst of brutal wars, not to mention the conflicts in Iraq and Syria that have forced mass migration to Europe. In Yemen, 17 million, or 60 percent of the country’s population are in need of emergency assistance, with near 7 million on the brink of starvation. In northeastern Nigeria, where scarcity of food has not historically been a problem, 5.1 million people find themselves food insecure as a consequence of a devastating Boko Haram insurgency. After the drought that hit Somalia in 2011, claiming the lives of an estimated 250,000 people, the country is now undergoing another, leaving 5.5 million in urgent need of food aid. The South Sudanese government has declared famine in portions of the country, while the WFP says that nearly 4.8 million people are staring down starvation. In Syria, after seven years of brutal civil war, some 6.5 million, or 33 percent of the population, now face acute hunger.
• While natural disasters and severe weather patterns have significant impacts on the availability of food, humanitarian assistance flows have recently shifted from providing global aid to victims of natural disasters, to now primarily assisting victims of violent conflict. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department earmarked nearly $533 million in food assistance dedicated to conflict areas in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and other countries surrounding the Lake Chad region. The implications are clear: the displacement of persons, disruption of markets, decline of governance, and destruction of infrastructure caused by violent conflict can have a devastating impact on the vulnerability of populations to food insecurity, particularly those vulnerable to climate change.

Issue: Food insecurity is not just a consequence of violent conflict. It’s a tool of warfare and authoritarian control as well as a possible recruitment mechanism for militant groups.

• It is possible that pervasive food insecurity can become a driver of conflict, perpetuating human suffering by prolonging war. David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, has said that food aid is “the first line of offense and defense against extremism and terrorism.”  The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan—the coordinating body of the international community’s efforts there – has specifically said, “There is a possibility that high food prices may be making young men more vulnerable for recruitment by anti-government elements, including the Taliban.”
• The Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis in Yemen have in the past used an air and sea blockade to isolate the group, placing civilian populations on the brink of starvations with reports suggesting over 50,000 children have died in the country from starvation in 2017 alone. In Syria, the regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to target markets – most notably in Aleppo and most recently in Eastern Ghouta – cutting off access to food as well as to humanitarian assistance, and using hunger as a tool of psychological warfare. North Korea has long used food as a means of control over the population, prioritizing those the state needs to maintain the regime over those deemed expendable. This discrimination for access to and distribution of food is based on North Korea’s “songbun” social classification system, privileging certain individuals, families and parts of the country, such as Pyongyang, over others.

Response: Knowing where these populations are and reaching them – whether because of inaccessibility from poor infrastructure and governance or due to the threat of violence to aid workers or those in need – is a constant challenge. To overcome these barriers, aid workers must look to advances in technology to better assess the situation on the ground and deliver food aid without fear of violence, corruption or looting. These technologies would augment, not replace aid workers, or other longer-term projects such as infrastructure development.

• Humanitarian aid workers must walk a fine line in the provision of food assistance without appearing as compromising their neutrality in a conflict and risking the safe passage of aid workers to deliver assistance to vulnerable populations, particularly those that might be party to the conflict themselves. Should certain factions view the delivery of assistance as detrimental to their efforts, or seek to siphon the aid for themselves, both state and non-state actors could turn to violence against aid workers. At least 79 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan since the beginning of the civil war in 2013. As of March, only 1.9 million of the 5.1 million in need of food aid in northeast Nigeria are being reached, in part, because of the Nigerian military’s heavy-handed response and restrictions on civilian movement.

• Satellite imagery can help identify isolated populations and inform aid workers of the impending crisis. One initiative is the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which aggregates atmospheric and meteorological data, satellite imagery and other information and then leverages predictive analytics tools to give early warning to emerging or likely crises.
• The negotiation of humanitarian access in conflict and post-conflict countries often includes tradeoffs between an organization’s freedom of movement and concessions made to local authorities operating in a vacuum of formal government control. To sidestep government corruption and or militant pilfering – as well as risking violence against humanitarian workers – drones could be used to deliver food aid.
• They could also be a source of information about the conditions on the ground, such as collapsed bridges, as well as detect the presence of danger. Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Chinese responders used drones to locate downed bridges, collapsed tunnels, and other chokepoints hindering aid efforts.
• However, the association of drones with military intelligence collection creates a stigma not easily avoided, and governments and militants may fear footage could be shared with human rights organizations documenting war crimes. In contested airspace, humanitarian drones can be targeted by the anti-aircraft systems of belligerents purposely using starvation as weapons of war. Potential advances in artificial intelligence (AI), however, could allow swarms of small drones to slip by air defense systems to individually deliver small packages of cargo—possibly even create impromptu networks for Wi-Fi and establish phone signal availability.

Looking Ahead: Continuing instability with predictions of more to come should drive the U.S. and other governments in the developed world to step up the investment in technologies like vertical farms to produce more food, and drones to deliver aid more safely and quickly. They also need to start planning for population flight from the conflict-ridden countryside to urban areas, stressing out-of-date urban infrastructure and food supply.

Levi Maxey is an analyst at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @lemax13.