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	Addressing hunger can make a meaningful contribution to peacebuilding by WFP, Food and Agriculture Organization, agencies   Protracted conflicts affecting 17 countries drives 57 million people into severe food insecurity - World Food Programme, UN Food and Agriculture Organization.   Protracted conflicts affecting 17 countries have driven millions of people into severe food insecurity and are hindering global efforts to eradicate malnutrition, two UN agencies have warned in a report submitted to the UN Security Council.   A new series of 17 country briefs prepared by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) and published today finds that conflicts have now pushed over 56 million people into either "crisis" or "emergency" levels of food insecurity when expressed in terms used by the Integrated Food Security Classification Phase (IPC) scale.   Topping the list in terms of the sheer numbers of people whose food security is being negatively impacted by ongoing conflict are Yemen, where 14 million people - over half the population - are now in a state of hunger crisis or emergency on the IPC scale, and Syria, where 8.7 million people - 37 percent of the pre-conflict population - need urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance.   In South Sudan where the situation is rapidly deteriorating 4.8 million people - some 40 percent of the population - are in need of urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance.   And in countries coming out of extended periods of civil strife such as the Central African Republic and Colombia millions of people are still wrestling with high levels of food insecurity.   In other countries, while the overall absolute numbers of people facing food insecurity are lower, the share of people experiencing severe levels of food insecurity accounts for over half of the total population.   A staggering 89 percent of all Syrian refugees currently in Lebanon require urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance. In Burundi and Haiti, 23 percent and 19 percent of people are at IPC level 3 or 4, respectively, while in the Central African Republic, 50 percent of the population is at IPC scale 3 or worse.   Noting in their introduction to the briefs that "conflict is a leading cause of hunger - each famine in the modern era has been characterized by conflict," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin underscore how hunger feeds violence and drives further instability.   "Conflict undermines food security in multiple ways: destroying crops, livestock and agricultural infrastructure, disrupting markets, causing displacement, creating fear and uncertainty over fulfilling future needs, damaging human capital and contributing to the spread of disease among others. Conflict also creates access problems for governments and humanitarian organizations, which often struggle to reach those in need," they note.   "Addressing hunger can be a meaningful contribution to peacebuilding," they argue, adding: "The 2030 Agenda recognizes peace as a vital threshold condition for development, as well as a development outcome in its own right."   The most recent estimates suggest that approximately half of the global poor now live in states characterized by conflict and violence.   People living in such places can be up to three times more likely to be undernourished than those living in more stable areas.   Post-conflict countries with high food insecurity are 40 percent more likely to relapse into conflict within a 10-year timespan if hunger levels are not addressed.   The briefs shared with the Security Council today cover 17 countries where conflict has significantly affected food security: in Latin America and the Caribbean, Haiti and Colombia; in Africa, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan; in the Middle East, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen; and in Asia, Afghanistan.   An additional brief on the regional Lake Chad crisis affecting Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon was also submitted. There, violence associated with Boko Haram has seen the numbers of displaced people triple over the past two years accompanied by rising levels of hunger and malnutrition.   http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/protracted-conflicts-causing-alarming-spikes-severe-hunger http://bit.ly/2aE9BIG http://www.fao.org/3/a-c0335e.pdf   April 2016   Improving food security can help build sustainable peace and even ward off looming conflict, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told members of the United Nations Security Council this week.   "We know that actions to promote food security can help prevent a crisis, mitigate its impacts and promote post-crisis recovery and healing," Graziano da Silva said.   Conflicts are a key driver of protracted crises, where hunger is three times more likely than in the rest of the developing world, while the countries with the highest levels of food insecurity are also those most affected by conflict.   That is borne out in cases ranging from Syria and Yemen to South Sudan and Somalia. He also cited post-conflict Angola and Nicaragua, post-genocide Rwanda and post-independence Timor-Leste as cases where peace and food security were mutually reinforcing. The opposite can also prove true, leading to a relapse into violence.   Failure to boost food security can jeopardize stabilization processes, a risk currently faced by Yemen and also in Central African Republic, where half the population is now food insecure, Graziano da Silva said. Food security assistance can be used even during conflicts, he added, noting that FAO''s final push to eliminate the livestock disease Rinderpest took place amid war and required an approach allowing animal health workers to gain access to cattle.   Syria is another example. Today, many farmers have fled their lands, but those that have remained are growing almost two-thirds of their pre-crisis wheat output, helped by FAO''s distribution of seeds. That''s inadequate but "has been critical to prevent even worse displacement and to set the foundations for rebuilding" the country, he said.   Fostering rural development can also facilitate peace building efforts. FAO has agreed to partner with the government of Colombia to fast-track projects enhancing food security and rural development in an effort to consolidate the peace treaty that appears close to being reached there.   International efforts in favour of peace will be more effective if they include measures to boost the resilience of rural households and communities, as it is they and their livelihoods that bear the brunt of the damage in contemporary conflicts.   "Where food security can be a force for stability, we have to look to food and agriculture as pathways to peace and security," he added.   Efforts to support farming and rural livelihoods can be a motivating rationale for bringing people together after conflict, and offer "peace dividends" by contributing to the sustainability of peace, he said.   Graziano da Silva pointed out that a core premise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all UN member states last year is that "there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development."   He also noted that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon''s "One Humanity: Shared Responsibility" report for the World Humanitarian Summit to held in Istanbul in May calls for "active engagement in conflict prevention" by all international actors including the Security Council. "As we all know, prevention requires addressing the root causes of conflict, including hunger and food insecurity," Graziano da Silva said.   http://bit.ly/1Kmx8bS http://bit.ly/2cuWDkz http://bit.ly/1QVO7F8   Mar. 2016   Most conflicts mainly affect rural areas and their populations. This is particularly true for civil conflicts, nowadays the most common form of armed conflict.   Conflict has strong and unambiguous adverse effects on food security and nutrition. It is the major driver of food insecurity and malnutrition, both acute and chronic.   Conflict has lasting impacts on human development as a result of increased malnutrition, which tends to affect children the most and leave lifelong physical and/or mental handicaps.   Causal effects of conflict-food security nexus vary across conflict zones, but common features are disruption of food production and food systems, plundering of crops and livestock, loss of assets and incomes, hence directly and indirectly affecting food access.   Food insecurity can also be a source of conflict, but not necessarily so. Where it is, it is never the one single factor behind the strife.   Causal effects of the food security-conflict nexus include dispossession of assets (including land and livestock) and threats to food security (including sudden food price increases), but in conjunction with other forms of grievance and discontent.   Building resilience through peacebuilding efforts is critical for food security and nutrition.   Little is known about how, and to what extent, improved food security could prevent conflict, and build and sustain peace. Yet, depending on context-specific conditions, food aid and social protection, as well as helping communities complete harvests, contribute significantly to peacebuilding.   Hunger, a Matter of Global Security, by Enrique Yeves. (IPS/FAO)   Food insecurity, at the heart of a great number of conflicts, should be considered a matter of world security if the international community wants to succeed in achieving long-lasting peace.   Desperate, frustrated, and with little hope for the future, on 17h December 2010, the Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi doused himself in petrol and set himself alight. Thus began the popular revolution that toppled the dictatorship of Zine El AbidineBen Ali, in power since 1987, and with it a domino effect that spread across North Africa and the Middle East.   The events took place in the small city of SidiBouzid but they could have taken place in any other part of the world so deeply affected by the high price of goods as basic and vital as bread. Paradoxically, Mohamed sold fruit and his dream was to buy a van and see his business grow.   The global food price crisis in 2008 coincided with revolts in over 40 countries and the fall of several governments such as in Egypt and Libya, highlighting the link between food security and political instability. The protests in Tunisia and other countries were initially demonstrations against the high price of food. This was not the only cause but rather the trigger of deep-rooted public indignation, although there was a common denominator.   In 2011, a similar rise in food prices led to new internal conflicts or exacerbated old ones in many countries, as can be seen in the diagram accompanying this article; when the price of foodstuffs reaches extreme levels, political instability and civil unrest is clear for all to see.   The lack of food, or to be more precise, the ability to acquire food – that is, poverty – is one of the most immediate threats to security and to people’s lives in conflicts, and at the same time makes conflicts more drawn-out affairs. There can be no peace without food security, and no food security without peace. They are two concepts in symbiosis. When FAO was created in 1945, the world was only just emerging from the Second World War and its founders knew that the Organization should play a vital role in the search for peace.   That is why, even then, they stated in their first session that “the Food and Agriculture Organization is born out of the need for peace as well as the need for freedom from want. The two are interdependent. Progress toward freedom from want is essential to lasting peace”.   Seventy years after the creation of FAO, the international community has strengthened this idea by adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, based on the premise that there can be no sustainable development without peace, and there can be no peace without sustainable development.   The link between food and peace was also behind the award of the 1949 Nobel Prize for Peace to Boyd Orr, the first FAO Director-General. On awarding the prize, the Chair of the Nobel Committee quoted from Boyd Orr’s Welfare and Peace: “We must conquer hunger and want, because hunger and want in the midst of plenty are a fatal flaw and a blot on our civilization. They are one of the fundamental causes of war. But it is no use trying to build the new world from the top down, with political ideas of spheres of influence and so on. We have to build it from the bottom upwards, and provide first the primary necessities of life for the people who have never had them, and build from the slums of this country upwards".   This is why food security is a prerequisite for peace and world security, and why hunger should be considered a matter of world security. This is even more the case in a globalized world, where something happening in one territory affects the rest of the world. This is also why measures to stabilize food prices and social protection networks are vital instruments to prevent violent conflicts.   All of this is why FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has launched a clear signal to the international community of the urgent need to challenge head on the issue of food insecurity in the widest sense of the term. In March he addressed the UN Security Council to highlight the interdependence of hunger and conflict, as well as how hunger destabilizes societies and aggravates political instability. Following this, the Security Council has requested that FAO keeps Council members regularly informed regarding the food situation in the world’s most crisis-hit countries.   Eradicating hunger is, then, not only a moral obligation, but something vital to guarantee a future for all of us. Improving food security can help to construct a sustainable peace, and even prevent future conflicts. We know that action promoting food security can help to prevent crises, mitigate their impact, and foster post-conflict recovery. It is clear that for us to prevent conflicts we must address their root causes, and amongst these are hunger and food insecurity.   Conflicts are a key factor in prolonged food security crises and the vicious circle is repeated time and again. During conflicts people are three times more likely to suffer hunger than in the rest of the developing world, while those countries with the highest levels of food insecurity are also those countries most affected by conflicts. This is evidenced in examples from Syria and Yemen to South Sudan and Somalia.   Other examples demonstrate that peace and food security are mutually dependent, such as post-conflict Angola and Nicaragua, or Rwanda after the genocide and East Timor after gaining independence. Without food security, there is the danger of relapsing into violence.   If attempts to secure food security fail, attempts to stabilize society come under threat: a threat currently facing Yemen and also Central African Republic, where half of the population suffer food insecurity. This was in fact the main subject of a conversation between the FAO Director-General and the new President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadera. He asked for FAO’s support to help disarm and reintegrate armed groups in the country successfully, intensifying efforts in the agricultural sector so that the sector can meet the population’s basic needs.   Promoting rural development can also help efforts to build peace. A specific, current example is FAO’s joint work with the Colombian government to implement programmes to improve food security and rural development quickly in an attempt to consolidate the anticipated peace agreement.   International efforts towards peace will be more effective if they include measures to build resilience in families and rural communities, since it is they and their livelihoods that conflicts harm most.   However, to achieve all of this, hunger, at the heart of a great number of conflicts, should be considered a matter of world security.   Human security & food security, by FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva   As the international community transitions from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the challenges ahead of Member States is to build on the substantial progress made in reducing poverty and hunger by 2015. A total of 72 countries out of 129 countries achieved the MDG 11 hunger target. Nonetheless, around 800 million people globally – 1 in 9 people on the planet – still suffer from hunger.   Human Security is “the right of all people to live in freedom and dignity, free from poverty and despair”, that “all individuals, in particular vulnerable people, are entitled to freedom from fear and freedom from want, with an equal opportunity to enjoy all their rights and fully develop their human potential”.   Human security aims at ensuring the survival, livelihood and dignity of people in response to current and emerging threats – threats that are widespread and cross cutting. Such threats are not limited to those living in absolute poverty or conflict.   “Improved knowledge and understanding of the interplays between food security and human security will help shape more effective interventions and contribute to more lasting results.” (UN Peacebuilding Commission, January 2015) http://bit.ly/2bXRD7i   http://bit.ly/2bGOnrr http://bit.ly/2bGPYTg http://bit.ly/1Yncv5k http://www.fao.org/emergencies/emergency-types/conflicts/en/ Visit the related web page
	As a result of conflict 1.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Libya by OCHA: Humanitarian Response info   Civilians in Libya continue to suffer as a result of conflict, insecurity, political instability and a collapsing economy. An estimated 1.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.   Internally displaced people, refugees and migrants are identified as having the most severe needs. Returnees and non-displaced Libyans in the worst affected areas are also in need of humanitarian assistance.   Access to life-saving medical healthcare and essential medicines are the most critical needs, as well as protection of the most vulnerable groups and access to essential goods and services, including food, shelter and water and sanitation.   Ongoing conflict and instability has restricted access to basic services, led to forced displacement and impacted people’s safety and security.   Medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed and essential medicines are not available. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people living in major cities are at high risk of death or serious injury due to explosive remnants of war (ERWs) and unexploded ordinance (UXOs).   The most vulnerable people have little or no financial means or other coping mechanisms to protect and support themselves, and face high risks of being exploited. Access to essential household goods such as food has significantly reduced due to fighting, insecurity, market disruption, inflation and limited cash availability. In addition, basic community services and utilities are not functional mostly due to damage or a lack of management and resources, denying people access to water, fuel and electricity. Humanitarian access is a major concern.   * Visit the Libya country page at Humanitarian Response Information, provided by UN OCHA for more details, see link below. Visit the related web page
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