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Title Conflict, institutional changes and food insecurity in eastern DR Congo
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-828044
Date 2009
Author(s) Lecoutere, Els; Vlassenroot, Koen; Raeymaekers, Timothy
Abstract The protracted crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that lasted from 1996 till 2003 aggravated processes of land alienation and reduced market access. Field research conducted in 2005 in three eastern DRC areas shows that these processes made rural households increasingly vulnerable and deepened structural causes of food insecurity. Households adapt their livelihood strategies because of the need to deal with the impact of different adversities and to anticipate various risks threatening their livelihoods. This further erodes resilience of poorly endowed households and forces them to forsake food security in the long run to avoid acute destitution. Yet, standard food relief interventions often solely focus on direct food availability and fail to address the underlying structural causes for food insecurity such as limited access to land and markets. We recommend a combination of interventions that address both in order to lift rural households in protracted crisis situations out of the food insecurity trap.
Subject(s) food security; conflict; institutional change; DR Congo; Social Sciences
Language eng
Type of publication info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Source ISSN: 0772-084X
Rights I have transferred the copyright for this publication to the publisher; info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
Repository Gent - University of Gent
Added to C-A: 2014-02-28;14:15:37