Armed conflicts and household food insecurity: Effects and mechanisms

Abstract

Despite extensive studies on the effects of armed conflict on household dietary diversity, food security, and nutritional outcomes, the underlying pathways remain underexplored. A better understanding of these mechanisms could unpack the subsequent effects of conflict-induced food insecurity and oft-reported nutritional shortcoming, as well as identify which policy interventions hold promise. We study the effects of terrorist violence in Burkina Faso on household dietary diversity, as proxied by food consumption scores (FCS), and investigate the underlying mechanisms. For this purpose, we combine nationally representative 5-years panel data on households with spatial conflict data. We find negative and significant effects of conflict intensity on household food consumption scores. The decline in household FCS is a result of significant decreased dietary diversity in both food production and purchases. Although households in rural areas partially offset these reductions by food assistance, those reliant solely on farming as livelihoods remain the most affected. Further investigations show evidence that per-capita farm income and food expenditure are pathways linking the intensity of armed conflict to reduced FCS in food purchases, whereas reduced dietary diversity in food production results from decline in crop production. Additional specification tests support our main findings, offering insights that can help policymakers faced with similar scaled-armed conflicts. For instance, conflict-sensitive interventions aimed at supporting crop production and farm income for affected households could effectively improve their dietary diversity and overall food security in a post-conflict environment.