Food security and global security - IEEE

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Pablo Yuste EcharrenHunger and conflictthose below 70% (18) . Another measurement of undernourishment is the Middle-Upper Arm Circumference, or MUAC. A value below 12.5 indicates ModerateAcute Malnutrition (MAM) and below 11 implies Severe Acute Malnutrition(SAM). The sum of both is called General Acute Malnutrition (GAM).180One crucial factor must be taken into account as regards the humanitarianimpact of any event, including food shortages: vulnerability. It is difficult for aEuropean reader to understand the extent to which conflict situations and theirpopulations are fragile. The fragility of such populations is caused by variousissues:• The poorer a population, the greater the percentage of its income spenton food, leaving less money available for other types of expenditure suchas health, investment in productive elements, or education. In developingcountries, the most vulnerable live on less than one dollar a day and spend80% of their resources on food. The slightest price rise has a huge impacton their chances of surviving a crisis.• Hunger does not affect all people equally. Take the population of the Sahel,for instance. It constantly faces undernourishment beyond emergency levels.When the situation gets worse, people do not have sufficient reservesin their body to go for long periods without eating and still maintain theirproductive capacity.• Besides bodily reserves, those of families are also extremely low. When ashortage arises, people are forced to take uneconomical decisions simply tosurvive. They sell their herd of animals, for example, which would enablethem to farm the following year, or eat the seeds which they keep for plantingfrom one harvest to the next. This means that their survival today putstheir short-term future into jeopardy.All of which creates situations of extreme vulnerability, whereby the impactsof having no access occur more quickly and far more dramatically than wecould ever imagine from our viewpoint in an overfed world.■■HUNGER AND CONFLICTWe must analyse the relationship between hunger and conflict bidirectionally.In one direction, food insecurity and malnutrition seem to have contributedtowards the increased rate of crises and the increased vulnerability of thosecountries facing them. Today, most armed conflicts and natural disasters arecentred on regions which are highly dependant on agriculture and countrieswith a high percentage of homes suffering from food insecurity, classified by(18)See the report published by Save the Children, Acute Malnutrition Summary Sheet, athttp://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae-432c-9bd0-df91d2eba74a%7D/Acute-Malnutrition-Summary-Sheet.pdf
Pablo Yuste EcharrenHunger and conflictthe FAO as «Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries» (LIFDCs) (19) . In the otherdirection, as well as being the result of a conflict, food insecurity can in factbe both its cause and origin. Very few conflicts occur in situations where thereis food security.■■Conflict as a Cause of Food Insecurity«Conflict causes food insecurity by reducing the production of food, access tofood, well-being and human capacity through the destruction of the environment,health and health care services, education and social infrastructure» (20) . Thefirst way in which conflict affects the food security of populations is to reduceproduction. According to FAO data, between 1970 and 1997, agricultural lossescaused by conflict in developing countries amounted to 121 billion dollars. Insub-Saharan Africa, losses in the 80s and 90s represented over 50% of the aidreceived and greatly exceeded foreign investment. According to 2003 WorldBank data, inter-state wars lead to an annual fall of 2.2% in Gross DomesticProduct (GDP) (21) .Another major effect is the breakdown of normal trade. Conflict tends, on theone hand, to increase the military spending of the affected countries at theexpense of other investments, such as infrastructures which could provide acheap means of bringing food to people suffering from insecurity. And on theother, military operations compete to a large degree for the same logisticalelements as the procurement market, thus raising food transport costs andimpeding access, especially that of the poorest people. Conflict also bringsabout a reduction in health spending in favour of military spending.181It should be pointed out that conflict as a cause of hunger has been extensivelystudied and therefore we do not intend to dedicate a large part of this articleto its analysis. Generally speaking, the elements described by Frederick C.CUNY in his book Famine, Conflict and Response (1991) are still relevant.Conflict leads to hunger by way of the following causes:––It interrupts the agricultural cycle––It drives farmers from their land––It interrupts trade mechanisms––It destroys food stores––It provokes food shortages which pushes up prices(19)International Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), ReducingPoverty and Hunger, Document Repository, 2002, at:http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/Y6265S/y6265s03.htm(20)Sen, Amartya, «Conflict, Food Insecurity and Globalization» in Ellen Messer and Marc. J.Cohen, Conflict, Food Insecurity and Globalization, Food Policy Research Institute report(IFPRI), May 2006.(21)Source: World Bank.
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Food security and globalsecuritySpa
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GENERAL CATALOGUE OF OFFICIAL PUBLI
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CONTENTSCONTENTSINTRODUCTIONSantos
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Santos Castro FernándezIntroductio
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CHAPTER ONETHE HUMAN RIGHT TO FOODA
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Julia Gifra and Susana BeltránThe
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María del Mar Hidalgo GarcíaThe i
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CHAPTER THREETHE ROLE OF WOMEN IN F
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María del Mar Hidalgo GarcíaThe r
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José Esquinas AlcázarBiodiversity
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Page 119 and 120: José Esquinas AlcázarBiodiversity
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Page 135 and 136: José María SumpsiThe volatility o
Page 161 and 162: CHAPTER SIXHUNGER AND CONFLICTPablo
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Page 185 and 186: CHAPTER SEVENBIOFUELS AND FOODSECUR
Page 187 and 188: José María Medina ReyBiofuels and
Page 215 and 216: INDEXINDEXPageCONTENTS.............
Page 217 and 218: From the 1990s to Present day: Sear
Page 219 and 220: PageConclusions and Recommendations
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Nº TITLE21 Efectos económicos de
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Nº TITLE63 Los grandes maestros de
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Nº TITLE106 Magreb: percepción es
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Nº TITLE144 La cooperación multil
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Food security and global security - IEEE

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