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External event

Conference

Food Insecurity: What Role in African Conflicts?

Food insecurity is usually believed to be a consequence of drought. Although it is easy to consider that where there is drought there must certainly be famines, there are various other conditions or factors that are generally involved. For example, one cannot overlook the role of conflict in the creation of food insecurity. Yet, whether the competition for access to scarce resources generates “food wars” or whether war creates food insecurity remains debatable. The international community has been particularly sensitive to images and news of starving children across Africa and interventions aimed at improving development and food security have been set up for long. This conference will seek to bridge research and policy on the topic in order to stimulate debate on the optimization of the international food aid system.

To address this issue, we have invited two prominent speakers who will cover different aspects of the topic. Dr Jean-François Maystadt is a senior lecturer at Lancaster University. He is an economist by training, who has extensively published on resilience to conflict induced by food insecurity and climate.

Mr Francesco Rampa, Head of the Food Security Programme at the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), is a graduate of the universities of Bocconi and Oxford. He has years of experience in policy-making with multilateral development and trade organisations as well as with national administrations.