Armed conflicts, forced displacement and food security in host communities

• Published in: World development 2022-10, Vol.158, p.105991, Article 105991
• Main Authors: George, Justin, Adelaja, Adesoji
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Armed conflict; Dietary diversity; Food security; Forced displacement; IDPs; Nigeria
• ISSN: 0305-750X; 1873-5991
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105991

•Study examines the food security impacts of forced displacement in host communities.•IDP influx reduces the food consumption scores (FCS) of host community households.•IDP influx due to conflicts also reduces the FCS.•However, IDP influx from natural disasters and communal violence raise the FCS.•Results suggest that humanitarian agencies respond slower to non-traditional shocks. In the last decade, the number of forcibly displaced people increased dramatically globally. In Africa, conflict has been one of the primary sources of forced displacement. Very few studies have examined the micro economic impacts of forced displacement on household welfare outcomes in host communities, especially on food security. In this study, we investigate how the inflow of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) impacts on household-level food security outcomes in Nigeria, a country that has experienced significant displacements due to the Boko Haram insurgency, farmer-herder conflicts and other communal conflicts. To uncover the hypothesized effects, we use an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach, where a spatially weighted IDP outflow variable is used as an instrument for the main independent variable. We find that IDP influx negatively impacts the household level food security conditions in host communities. We specifically uncover differential impacts of displacement drivers such as armed conflicts, natural disasters and communal violence. The results are consistent across alternate model specifications and sensitivity analyses.