Response of internally displaced people (idp) to food insecurity in situations of prolonged conflict

Abstract

Household food insecurity in situations of conflict is a major humanitarian problem, which has increased hunger and starvation among the people who have been affected by the Northern Uganda conflict. Specific reports show that, it has been difficult to appropriately respond to the food needs of the IDPs in Northern Uganda (WFP 2005). Part of the problem has been the lack of in-depth analysis of how the IDPs continued to survive, despite limited humanitarian assistance. Majority of people affected by the Northern conflict developed and adopted specific coping and response strategies in order to achieve the required level of food entitlement in their households. However, there has been very limited understanding and actual quantification of the local people’s contribution towards the ir basic survival needs including food among the IDPs. This caused a significant mismatch between external response and actual level of needs faced by the IDPs. The study attempts to bring a new breed of evidence on the logical sequence and rational behavior which enabled the IDP households to employ particular coping and response strategies against food insecurity. Overall, the evidence shows that the IDP households had a rational pattern in the development and adoption of coping strategies. The households initially concentrated on extreme austerity measures, followed by depletion of available productive assets, before resorting to strategies likely to have negative impact on future household food security. Based on the main findings such as loss of household productive assets, failure in crop production and increased levels of vulnerability to food insecurity which triggered the adoption of various coping strategies for survival, the researcher argues that an in-depth understanding of how households allocate their scarce resources to cope in times of crisis is of immense value to a broad array of emergency and development work. He also contends that further research work towards the development of household coping strategy conceptual framework in situations of chronic conflict, will provide an informed approach to the design of emergency and development interventions in conflict situations