by Suresh Babu | International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
- Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
During times of conflict, building robust food systems can improve access to food
About 20 million people face starvation in four countries: Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria, the United Nations says. Armed conflict, combined with drought and natural resource degradation have led to the breakdown of resilience in the food system in these areas.
While the United Nations struggles to raise the $4.4 billion necessary to address the humanitarian crisis, it is imperative for the development community to reevaluate best practices and lessons learned from previous crises to avert future famine.
Unless war is stopped and peacebuilding begins, there is no hope for long-term development for these countries; in the meantime, however, there are ways to help the affected populations cope with the current crisis by improving food systems.
Actions to strengthen resilience in food systems as part of relief measures can provide critical access to food and prevent stressed areas from becoming vulnerable to famine in the future.
Resilience in the food system is simply the capacity to bounce back from manmade or natural shocks like armed conflict and drought. This resilience must be built before a country moves toward long-term development.
In famine-affected countries, food systems resilience was already low; correspondingly, malnutrition, hunger and poverty levels were already high. While the political economies of each country are different, these conditions left them particularly vulnerable to famine.
During times of conflict, building robust food systems can improve access to food from local sources when external aid may be difficult to deliver due to fighting, as warring parties sometimes disrupt transports.
The ability to produce local foods and especially drought resistant foods, even in limited quantities, can therefore have a significant and positive effect on food security and food markets.
Building flexibility and adaptive ability against natural disasters like drought can similarly provide relief from harsh conditions.
Droughts that induce the displacement of people often result in large scale land desiccation and degradation, further inhibiting production of and access to food. Food systems that can support communities suffering through droughts can help maintain healthy ecosystems capable of bouncing back from weather stress.
Famine-prone countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh have shown that resilient food systems can thwart drought-induced famines over the last 25 years.
Figure 1 below shows a schematic depiction of three states: before, during, and after war. As the diagram illustrates, building resilience requires continuous engagement with communities left behind.
Specific interventions can help provide relief on the one hand and build their capacity on the other to deal with daily challenges of living in areas stressed by conflict or natural resource disasters. Such capacity can over time result in the communities’ ability to quickly move back and forth between relief and development mode.
Building resilience also entails creating local community based institutions and networks that can transform relief assistance into development.
At the national levels, systems that forewarn impending disasters need to be strengthened alongside individual capacities for analyzing context-specific humanitarian assistance and cost effective interventions that governments and development partners could support.
There are signs that multilateral support may be increasing for interventions that rethink their response paradigm from “relief and development” to “relief to resilient food systems.” The next steps of interventions call for a paradigm shift that sows the seeds for a more durable development process.
Suresh Babu is a senior research fellow and head of capacity strengthening at the international food policy research institute.
THEMES FOOD GENERAL NATURAL DISASTERSACCESS AND RIGHTSHUNGER AND NUTRITION SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL EXPLORE MORE FOOD NEWS ORIGINAL INTERVIEW-Ocean farmer hatches "nail salon of the sea" plan to grow food cheaply Venezuela anti-government unrest marks 50th day with huge marches ORIGINAL No set menu to feed cities' growing appetite ORIGINAL Coffee flour, beer pizza on menu as innovators fight food waste Property Rights This article is brought to you by place, our land and property rights portal. Find out more In world's largest urban rainforest, it's conservation vs housing rights by Chris Arsenault | @chrisarsenaul | Thomson Reuters Foundation Wednesday, 24 May 2017 13:00 GMT Image Caption and Rights Information ABOUT OUR PROPERTY RIGHTS COVERAGE This story is part of Property Rights Our new website shining a light on land and property rights around the world Share:
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What lies ahead for WHO's new chief Tedros? Nepali trafficking survivor conquers Everest to warn others of slavery India's 'anti-human trafficking caravan' tours villages and towns Climate-threatened Bangladesh to impose carbon tax in June Cash in on businesses to help boost disaster protection: UN Haydee has lived in her home in Tijuca National Park since 1942, but park authorities now want her and dozens of other forest residents to leave. By Chris Arsenault
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Deep among the green trees and winding footpaths of the world's largest urban rainforest, Brazilian retiree Maria Haydee has found herself in the midst of a simmering conflict between housing rights and environmental protection.
Her pink concrete bungalow sits inside Rio de Janeiro's Tijuca National Park, a protected area of lush hilltops, waterfalls and hiking trails.
Haydee has been living there since 1942, nearly two decades before the 3950 hectare (9760 acre) park was established. She said her late husband worked for the city as a groundskeeper and was allowed to build the house by the local authorities.
But park authorities now want Haydee and dozens of other residents out, saying their presence is illegal and hurting conservation efforts.
The showdown is one of hundreds happening in Brazil's vast protected areas and underlines the problem of unclear property rights which makes life hard for both residents and environmentalists, campaigners on both sides of the divide say.
"The existence of houses - including their garbage and food waste - impacts the environment," Ernesto Viveiros de Castro, chief officer of the Tijuca National Park told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In one case, he said researchers had spent nearly a year preparing a monkey for reintroduction into the wild only for it to be domesticated by one of the forest's residents, undermining conservation work.
Maria Haydee poses for a picture outsideher home, April 22, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Chris Arsenault WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY?
Haydee's home is one of about 60 in the park, said Otavio Alves Barros, a community leader campaigning for the rainforest's residents to be given formal property title deeds or decent homes elsewhere.
Environmentalists say some are long-term residents with legitimate claims to their homes, but others are squatters who arrived recently and need to be removed.
Despite living in her home for more than 50 years, Haydee never received a title deed for the property, a common problem across Brazil according to government officials and activists.
"We registered it with a cartorio," Haydee said, referring to a private land registrar common in Brazil. "That registration was worthless and now they want us to leave."
Haydee's home, full of faded family photographs, is dark and stacks of firewood are piled up in the living room. She and her neighbour, Luci Rosi, say their electricity connections have been cut.
"This is my home, I spent my childhood here," said Rosi, a retired maid and widow who also has a long-standing claim to her well-maintained property. "We want our electricity back."
Park director Castro said an old electrical network was disconnected because of fire risks and was replaced with underground lines.
Government agencies aren't able to reconnect residents to the grid as they lack proper ownership papers, Castro said. He denied residents' claims that park authorities had anything to do with cutting their power off.
Retired maid Luci Rosi poses for a picture inside of the Tijuca National Park, April 22, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Chris Arsenault PEOPLE AND PARKS
The dispute in Tijuca National Park is not an isolated problem, said Carol Lobo, a conservationist with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Brazil.
"There is a major, historical problem with land acquisition related to private property in national parks," Lobo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Our environmental legislation is recognised as some of the best in the world, but mechanisms around land acquisition take too long and are extremely complex."
Half of Brazil's properties don't have full ownership deeds, according to the government.
When conservation groups or the government want to establish a park, it's often unclear who has a right to be on the land and deserves compensation if ordered to leave, Lobo said.
Insecure tenure is compounded by Brazil's current economic crisis, the worst on record, which has reduced tax revenue and the government's ability to fund conservation projects with the budget for protected areas slashed by about half, she said.
Some protected areas, including those in the Amazon rainforest, allow indigenous groups and other communities to live on the land, Lobo said.
But urban parks like Tijuca aren't supposed to have people living within their boundaries.
However, conservation authorities often don't have the budget to compensate people with long-standing claims in these areas.
A waterfall at Tijuca National Park, April 22, 2017. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Chris Arsenault WHERE TO GO?
Along with a lack of funds for relocation, the difficulty in finding places for people like Rosi and Haydee to live so that they don't disturb conservation programmes is compounded by seemingly contradictory laws, said land reform activist Barros.
"One law says that people aren't allowed to reside in parks," said Barros who runs an eco-tourism outfit on the park's fringes.
"But another law says that residents can only be removed from their homes if they are in extremely dangerous areas for landslides or other natural disasters."
Haydee and Rosi aren't in any immediate danger, and are keen to stay in their homes.
Speaking outside Haydee's house where a plaque on the front door proclaims "Life starts at 70", Rosi said she would move if given a comparable home in another part of Rio.
"I don't want to leave," she said. "But I don't know if it will be possible to stay."
(Reporting by Chris Arsenault @chrisarsenaul, Editing by Emma Batha.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change