A War in West Asia, Hunger in West Africa: How Conflict Travels Through Food Systems
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Article summary
Health and aid workers in northern Nigeria report that children treated for acute malnutrition are increasingly relapsing after discharge, and attribute the deterioration in part to knock-on effects of the conflict involving Iran. The transmission runs through prices and financing rather than through any direct involvement of Nigeria in the conflict: disruption in energy markets raises fuel, fertiliser and transport costs, which raises food prices in import-dependent economies, while donor attention and humanitarian budgets shift toward the conflict zone. Relapse is a distinct clinical and programmatic failure from initial incidence, because it indicates that a child returned to a household unable to sustain recovery. The episode illustrates how conflicts generate nutritional emergencies in countries far from the fighting, and why global food security is treated as a security question rather than only a development one.
What this tests
Sample questions — answers revealed after test
Q1. The term food security, as defined internationally, is best captured by which of the following?
Q2. A distant conflict in West Asia is linked to worsening child malnutrition in northern Nigeria. Which one of the following best describes the transmission mechanism?
Q3. Consider the following statements about the vulnerability of poor food-importing economies to distant conflicts: 1. Countries that spend a high share of household income on food are more exposed to global price shocks than wealthier economies. 2. A relapse into malnutrition can occur where food is physically available but has become unaffordable, making it a failure of access rather than of supply. 3. Because such a shock originates abroad, an affected country's own policies — social protection, buffer stocks, targeted nutrition programmes — can do nothing to cushion its population. Which of the statements given above are correct?