Search

Highlights • Food insecurity and violent conflict are global challenges and causally linked to each other in many ways. • We provide a brief survey over key themes in the quantitative literature on this nexus. • We focus on the micro-level, the role of conflict type, heterogeneity, resilience, and humanitarian crises. • Little is known about how to design effective policies to help households escape combined conflict-hunger traps. • Finally, better data at the micro-level will provide a large boost to much needed research in this field. Abstract We review briefly recent trends in food security and violent conflict and the quantitative literature discussing their interactions, as reflected by the papers in this special issue. We find a large diversity in experiences of food security and conflict, posing a challenge for causal identification which can be resolved by spatially disaggregated, high frequency micro-level data on both food security and conflict. We identify examples of strong individual and institutional capacities to cope with conflict, maintaining food security against the odds across very diverse settings, stressing the importance in accounting for the type of conflict at the micro-level. We also discuss how the concept of resilience is a useful lens for understanding household food security in conflict settings and we outline how food insecurity and conflict can lead to protracted crises. Finally, we identify future research topics in this field. Overall, the special issue contributes to the literature on food security and violent conflict by highlighting three insights: First, the need for adequate data to advance the analytical and policy agendas; second, the diversity of experiences of conflict and food security; and, third, the decisive role played by specific practices and policies in smoothing the negative effects of conflicts for food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This paper studies the effect of the 2014 conflict on household food security and resilience in the Gaza Strip. • Food security of Palestinian households in the Gaza Strip was not directly affected by the 2014 conflict. • Resilience that is necessary to resist food insecurity declined among Gazan households as a result of the conflict. • The reduction of adaptive capacity was driven by the deterioration of income stability and income diversification. • The conflict increased the use of social safety nets and access to basic services for the exposed households. Abstract This paper studies how conflict affects household resilience capacity and food security, drawing on panel data collected from households in Palestine before and after the 2014 Gaza conflict. During this escalation of violence, the majority of the damages in the Gaza Strip were concentrated close to the Israeli border. Using the distance to the Israeli border to identify the effect of the conflict at the household level through an instrumental variable approach, we find that the food security of households in the Gaza Strip was not directly affected by the conflict. However, household resilience capacity that is necessary to resist food insecurity declined among Gazan households as a result of the conflict. This was mainly due to a reduction of adaptive capacity, driven by the deterioration of income stability and income diversification. However, the conflict actually increased the use of social safety nets (expressed in the form of cash, in-kind or other transfers that were received by the households) and access to basic services (mainly access to sanitation) for the households exposed to the conflict. This finding may be related to the support provided to households in the Gaza Strip by national and international organizations after the end of the conflict. From a policy perspective, the case of the conflict in the Gaza Strip demonstrates that immediate and significant support to victims of conflict can indeed help restore resilience capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Food insecurity and violent conflict are global challenges and causally linked to each other in many ways. • We provide a brief survey over key themes in the quantitative literature on this nexus. • We focus on the micro-level, the role of conflict type, heterogeneity, resilience, and humanitarian crises. • Little is known about how to design effective policies to help households escape combined conflict-hunger traps. • Finally, better data at the micro-level will provide a large boost to much needed research in this field. Abstract We review briefly recent trends in food security and violent conflict and the quantitative literature discussing their interactions, as reflected by the papers in this special issue. We find a large diversity in experiences of food security and conflict, posing a challenge for causal identification which can be resolved by spatially disaggregated, high frequency micro-level data on both food security and conflict. We identify examples of strong individual and institutional capacities to cope with conflict, maintaining food security against the odds across very diverse settings, stressing the importance in accounting for the type of conflict at the micro-level. We also discuss how the concept of resilience is a useful lens for understanding household food security in conflict settings and we outline how food insecurity and conflict can lead to protracted crises. Finally, we identify future research topics in this field. Overall, the special issue contributes to the literature on food security and violent conflict by highlighting three insights: First, the need for adequate data to advance the analytical and policy agendas; second, the diversity of experiences of conflict and food security; and, third, the decisive role played by specific practices and policies in smoothing the negative effects of conflicts for food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper analyzes the inequality and determinants of flexibility in smallholder land access in post-war northern Mozambique. This paper demonstrates that high land endowments in aggregate do not imply equal access to cultivated or fallow land at the household level, even if land access has some flexibility across time. A formal test establishes the low extent of flexibility in land access at the household level in the study site. The econometric analysis further reveals that some groups of households such as female-headed households and those with low asset endowments or weak social institutions suffer from significant rigidities in land access. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: In the development literature, there exists no systematic study of external borrowing in post-conflict countries. We address this gap by analyzing statistical and case study evidence from three African countries. We find that many war-affected countries face rising debt arrears and deteriorating relations with creditors. Rebuilding trust between lenders and borrowers is hence a crucial but often slow process. Furthermore, donors to war-affected African countries have been slow to grant exceptional debt relief based on odious debt or on financial requirements. Debt relief for post-conflict reconstruction should embrace a more forward looking and more generous conditionality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We analyse the effectiveness of fiscal policy rules for business cycle stabilisation in a monetary union using a quarterly macro-econometric model of Germany. The simulations compare a deficit target and an expenditure target under a range of supply, demand and fiscal shocks. Their effects are evaluated by their impact on prices and output. The analysis demonstrates that in general the deficit target of the stability pact leads to less stabilisation than an expenditure target. The results suggest that the deficit rule of the stability pact should be replaced with an expenditure rule augmented by medium-term debt targets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This introduction notes the importance of the economic evaluation of the consequences of terror and summarizes the contributions in this special issue. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The detrimental impacts of wars on human development are well documented across research domains, from public health to micro-economics. However, these impacts are studied in compartmentalized silos, which limits a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of conflicts, hampering our ability to effectively sustain human development. This article takes a first step in addressing this gap by reviewing the literature on conflict impacts through the lens of an inter-disciplinary theoretical framework. We review the literature on the consequences of conflicts across 9 dimensions of human development: health, schooling, livelihood and income, growth and investments, political institutions, migration and displacement, socio-psychological wellbeing and capital, water access, and food security. The study focuses on both direct and indirect impacts of violence, reviews the existing evidence on how impacts on different dimensions of societal wellbeing and development may intertwine, and suggests plausible mechanisms to explain how these connections materialize. This exercise leads to the identification of critical research gaps and reveals that systematic empirical testing of how the impacts of war spread across sectors is severely lacking. By streamlining the literature on the impacts of war across multiple domains, this review represents a first step to build a common language that can overcome disciplinary silos and achieve a deeper understanding of how the effects of war reverberate across society. This multidisciplinary understanding of conflict impacts may eventually help to reconcile divergent estimates and enable forward-looking policies that minimize the costs of war. • Armed conflict has complex, multi-level impacts on many dimensions of human development. • Armed conflict affects development through destruction, deterioration, disruption, diversion, dissaving and devaluation. • Individual and macro-level impacts of armed conflict are both short and long-lasting, and extend beyond directly affected areas. • The expectation of violence is sufficient to negatively impact development across many domains. • Women and children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of violence. • The impacts of violence across different domains are likely to interact and reinforce, but more research is needed to understand these indirect mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School gardens have become a widely used approach to influence children's food knowledge, preferences and choices in low- and high-income countries alike. However, evidence indicates that such programs are more effective at influencing food knowledge and preferences than actual food choices. Such finding may occur because school gardens insufficiently influence the food behavior of parents and because healthy food items are not always available in children's homes. We tested this hypothesis using a one-year cluster randomized controlled trial in Nepal with 15 treatment and 15 control schools and a matched sample of 779 schoolchildren (aged 8–12) and their caregivers. Data were collected before and after the intervention during the 2018–2019 school year. In addition, children's food consumption was monitored using a monthly food logbook. Average treatment effects were quantified with a double-difference estimator. For caregivers, the intervention led to a 26% increase in their food and nutrition knowledge (p < 0.001), a 5% increase in their agricultural knowledge (p = 0.022), a 10% increase in their liking for vegetables (p < 0.001), and a 15% increase in home garden productivity (p = 0.073). For children, the intervention had no discernible effect on food and nutrition knowledge (p = 0.666) but led to a 6% increase in their liking for vegetables (p = 0.070), healthy food practices (p < 0.001), and vegetable consumption (October–December +15%; p = 0.084; January–March +26%; p = 0.017; April–June +26%; p = 0.088). The results therefore indicate both schools and parents matter for nudging children toward healthier food choices. • Past studies showed limited effects of school gardens on children's food choices. • We test a novel design that trains children and caregivers in gardening and nutrition. • The cluster-RCT included 30 schools and 779 children/caregivers in Nepal. • Children's rate of vegetable consumption increased 15–26%, depending on season. • School gardens need to affect household-level food availability/preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The effects of early life exposure to cold winter, drought, and excessive rainfall shocks on stunting probabilities of children under five are analyzed with panel data from Kyrgyzstan. • Stunting in the youngest age group increases with exposure to all types of shocks, and the effects are driven by boys. • The effect of exposure to cold shocks is driven by households using electricity for heating. • Seasonal differences in the effects of exposure to weather shocks are found. • Sensitivity analyses show that stunting effects occur even at low weather shock magnitudes. It has been shown consistently in the literature that early life exposure to extreme weather events affects children's nutritional status and related long-term health and well-being outcomes. The effects of weather shocks other than rainfall, as well as heterogeneous effects among population subgroups and moderators of this relationship, however, are less well understood. By combining a rich three-wave representative household panel dataset from Kyrgyzstan, a country where weather extremes such as droughts, floods but also cold spells are predicted to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change in the near future, with location-matched weather data, this paper analyzes how different weather shocks (cold winter, drought, excessive rainfall) affect the probability of stunting of children under five. Using fixed effects regression models, we find that children under 20 months are most severely affected by all three types of early life weather shocks. Most notably, we find that cold shocks experienced in winter increase the probability of stunting, and that this effect is particularly pronounced for households that mainly rely on electricity for indoor heating, potentially due to frequent power cuts occurring in winter. We do not find rural/urban differences, but we find some seasonal effects of shock exposure. Overall, effects are driven by boys, even though we do not find statistically significant gender differences. Identifying the geographical and sociodemographic subgroups of children most vulnerable to extreme weather events can support the design of targeted policies addressing child malnutrition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis affecting everyone. Yet, its challenges and countermeasures vary significantly over time and space. Individual experiences of the pandemic are highly heterogeneous and its impacts span and interlink multiple dimensions, such as health, economic, social and political impacts. Therefore, there is a need to disaggregate "the pandemic": analysing experiences, behaviours and impacts at the micro level and from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Such analyses require multi-topic pan-national survey data that are collected continuously and can be matched with other datasets, such as disease statistics or information on countermeasures. To this end, we introduce a new dataset that matches these desirable properties - the Life with Corona (LwC) survey - and perform illustrative analyses to show the importance of such micro data to understand how the pandemic and its countermeasures shape lives and societies over time. • New Life with Corona survey collects data across domains, time and SARS-CoV-2 rates. • Analysis of data reveals multidimensional challenges and inequalities in the pandemic. • The LwC survey also helps to grasp the societal impacts created by countermeasures. • Results show need for joined-up thinking in how impacts of the pandemic are analyzed. • Results show need for data structured in a way that supports this joined-up thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]