Conflict, Climate Change and Covid 19, the terrible trio that exacerbate global food and economic insecurity
According to the United Nations [1], “Extreme hunger and malnutrition remain an obstacle to sustainable development and create a trap from which it is difficult to escape. Hunger and malnutrition make people less productive, more prone to disease and therefore more often unable to earn more and improve their livelihoods. “Conversely, when people lack economic security because they are dependent on precarious employment or have lost their means of production, they cannot meet their food needs. 690 million people suffer from hunger in 2020, or 8.9% of the world’s population (FAO). Many of these people are in rural areas and yet contribute to feeding the world as farmers, breeders or fishermen. And ironically, people with access to too much food tend to waste it; according to the UN, each year an estimated one third of all food produced, the equivalent of 1.3 billion tons, ends up in the garbage cans of consumers and retailers.
Vegetable farming, Gado, Cameroon – 2019
The Global Food Crisis Report 2020 [2] analyzed the main factors contributing to food and economic insecurity and classified them according to the importance of their impact on populations: 1) conflicts and insecurity, 2) extreme climate shocks, 3) economic shocks. To a lesser extent, the following factors also aggravate food and economic insecurity: crop, livestock and human diseases.
The Covid 19 pandemic has changed this situation, making it one of the main causes of hunger and loss of income in the world again. Indeed, in many countries, restrictions on movement affect access to employment, access to means of production (seeds, etc.) or the sale of products. The income, and consequently the purchasing power of many people, is thus greatly diminished. In addition, the various restrictive measures implemented by governments (containment, border closures) have degraded access to food markets and the supply of food products on these markets, whether produced in the country or imported from abroad, sometimes causing price inflation [3]. David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), speaks of the risk of a “famine pandemic” with 270 million people affected [4]. Mark Lowcock, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator points out that the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance will rise from 168 million in 2020 to 235 million in 2021, a considerable increase of 40%.
Conflicts and climate shocks will also continue to be major causes affecting the food and economic security of many populations in 2021. During conflicts, civilians are often deprived of their sources of income, food systems and markets are disrupted, resulting in higher prices and/or reduced availability of food and productive commodities and tools. Conflicts prevent businesses from operating and weaken the national economy. David Beasley estimated in 2017 that about 60% of the world’s hungry people live in conflict zones. 80% of WFP’s budgets are allocated to war zones. Concerning climatic shocks (floods, droughts, etc.), they affect the livelihoods of populations, especially those who are highly dependent on natural resources (farmers, herders). Land is degraded, crops are destroyed, while livestock struggle to find water for drinking and sufficient pasture. Natural disasters also impact productive and economic infrastructure: roads, bridges, dams, buildings, irrigation networks, etc. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that agricultural yields will decrease by 20% per decade by the end of the 21st century in some areas of the Sahel.
The Food Security and Livelihoods Strategy of Solidarités International 2020-2025
Achieving zero hunger in 2030 as desired by the Sustainable Development Goals seems, according to the situation previously exposed, an unattainable goal since world hunger figures are increasing again, whereas they had managed to decrease between 2005 and 2015 [5]. This increase could even accelerate if the current crises, conflicts, natural disasters, pandemics continue to intensify.
Solidarités International has been working in the SAME sector (Food Security and Livelihoods) since its creation with its first food assistance operations in Afghanistan. The general objective of its SAME interventions, recalled in its 2020 – 2025 strategy [6], is to ensure sustainable food and economic security for populations vulnerable to political, socio-economic, climatic and health shocks.
According to the intervention logic of SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL (SI), our SAME activities are part of 3 different phases of intervention to achieve this objective:
How do SAME activities work?
1) Shock absorption: by covering food needs and supporting food markets, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL (SI) helps prevent the risks of hunger and malnutrition and prevents populations from increasing their vulnerability to the crisis.
2) early recovery: through the distribution of productive inputs, technical support and the rehabilitation of economic infrastructure (reconstruction of markets, road rehabilitation, drainage of agricultural fields, etc.), SI contributes to the revival of the population’s economic activities.
3) risk preparedness and adaptation: in-depth analysis of livelihood capacities and vulnerabilities to shocks enables SI to strengthen these livelihoods and diversify them so that they are more resilient. Through the value chain approach, SI strengthens the adaptive capacities of actors along food chains and labor markets.
For 2025, the strategy of the SAME sector focuses on 3 axes:
Developing our emergency response capabilities, particularly by integrating with our Water-Sanitation-Hygiene (WASH) emergency responses to maximize their impact on populations
Better alert and anticipate SAME needs in the face of chronic shocks by participating in food and nutrition security surveillance systems.
Develop the long-term adaptive capacities of food and economic systems, particularly in the face of economic and climatic crises.
SI is well involved in the global Food Security cluster co-led by FAO and WFP, where the association is a member of the SAG (Strategic Advisory Group) [7]. 7] It is the voice of NGOs and contributes to the strategic orientation of this cluster and its accountability to its partners and the populations supported by SAME interventions. SI’s objective is to mobilize as many humanitarian actors as possible in order to find relevant, efficient and sustainable solutions to help reduce food and economic insecurity in the world as quickly as possible.
How is the search for quality and impact of programs organized at Solidarités International?
SI’s Food Safety and Livelihoods (SAME) unit is part of the Deputy Program Operations Department (DOAP), alongside the Water/Sanitation/Hygiene (WASH) and MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning) units, as well as cross- functional reference points for the Market-Based Approach and Public Health. This Deputy Directorate guarantees the technical and methodological quality of IS programs. Its mandate is divided into 4 objectives:
To improve the overall quality of IS operations through the development of tools, guides and training, as well as support for the formulation of intervention logics and the demonstration of the impacts of interventions.
Improve IS technical skills by conducting training, technical workshops and developing technical partnerships
Provide direct technical support to field programs on specific technical aspects or at critical phases (diagnosis of needs, strategy, implementation, monitoring-evaluation, development of innovations)
Represent SI’s expertise externally to humanitarian coordination networks or networks for the exchange of expertise and learning (EAH and Food Security Clusters, ALNAP, Global Task Force Cholera, Humanitarian Environment Network, etc.).
Who Is Julie Mayans ?
Trained as an agricultural engineer, she has been working for 15 years in the Food Security and Livelihoods sector (SAME), emergency development responses in Africa, America and Asia with several NGOs (SI, ACF, CARE, TGH and IFRC). She has held several positions in the field: Program Manager, Program Coordinator and also Regional Coordinator.
For the past 6 years, she has been working at Solidarités International’s headquarters as a SAME technical advisor and focal point for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate. Within the technical department, she provides technical support to the field teams in the different phases of the project cycle (needs assessment, project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation). On the other hand, she is responsible for the development and operationalization of the SAME IS strategy and the technical orientations related to this sector. Finally, she represents SI’s SAME expertise externally to the global food security cluster and various inter-NGO working groups (Humanitarian Environment Network, DRR Network, Agriculture Working Group of the cluster).
4] In addition, the FAO report “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020”, although referring to the year 2019, estimated that the Covid-19 pandemic could add between 83 and 132 million people to the total number of undernourished people in the world by the end of 2020.
5] In ten years, between 2005 and 2015, the number of undernourished people increased from one billion to 800 million, i.e., 200 million fewer people (FAO).
This article makes no distinction between humanitarian aid and development. Yet these two fields of action have different timescales and objectives. While humanitarian action is aimed at meeting the vital needs of the most vulnerable, development is a long-term process, designed to accompany social change.
The remarks that follow on the value of anthropology and the ways in which it can be integrated into humanitarian and development actions must therefore be adapted according to the situation on the ground – more or less urgent, conflict-ridden or unstable. In the humanitarian field, anthropology is perhaps most useful when emergencies become chronic, and in post-crisis and reconstruction phases.
The terms international aid/international action/aid actors are used to refer generally to development and humanitarian actors and action. However, it is important to be aware of the distinction between these actors and modes of action when reading this article.
How can anthropology and humanitarian action be better combined?
Anthropology has long included development mechanisms and humanitarian action in its field of study. It often takes a critical look at the logics of power inherent in the international actions of NGOs. Many anthropologists have studied these issues, and it is now generally accepted that there is such a thing as “development anthropology” or “humanitarian anthropology”. The reverse – the integration of anthropology into humanitarian action – is also true, but to a lesser extent.
In fact, anthropology is not always integrated into the design of aid programs, or into NGOs’ reflection on their own actions. Yet there is a broad consensus on the value of this discipline for humanitarian action[i]. Anthropological studies of the populations targeted by international action provide a better understanding of the populations concerned, the power dynamics within groups, and the knowledge and practices in place. This information, once taken into account by aid actors, would enable projects to be better targeted and their adoption by the people targeted to be reinforced. So, what hinders its integration, and what solutions are available to humanitarian actors?
1. What hinders the use of anthropology in humanitarian aid?
a. Opposite modes of intervention
Anthropology and humanitarian aid have quite different modes of intervention. While the former aims to describe the world with as little alteration as possible to its object of study, the aid sector assumes a modification of its field of action and, in the case of development, aims to accompany social change.
These two disciplines operate in opposing timeframes. Anthropological research, by virtue of its ethnographic method, takes a long-term view. It requires an in-depth understanding of the logics of actors, and a sharing of their experiences. Development and humanitarian aid, on the other hand, take a shorter timeframe, often defined by the funding granted by donors. Action must be efficient – achieving its objectives in a short space of time – since the NGO is accountable to institutional or private backers, donors and beneficiaries alike.
Finally, because of these two characteristics, anthropology and humanitarianism have distinct approaches to reality. Anthropology, which seeks to understand the complexity of social relationships, looks at things from an actor’s point of view. Humanitarianism, on the other hand, takes a programmatic approach to reality. The latter sometimes requires a simplification and homogenization of social reality.
These very different ways of working make it difficult to work together. There is sometimes a lack of understanding between these two working cultures and their respective players. The anthropologist is said to be too academic and detached from the “field reality” of the humanitarians. His work does not fit in with the developer’s timeframe, and is not operational enough. Humanitarians, on the other hand, are at the service of action, and are unable to stand back and reflect on more abstract issues that are far removed from the field.
b. A project-based rationale that prevents a long-term approach
Integrating anthropology into the humanitarian field is made difficult by the very way the aid sector operates. NGOs have little time between the call for projects and the first response they have to give. This does not allow them to carry out a proper needs analysis before defining activities and expected results.
The project approved by the donor is already complete, presenting a needs analysis, baseline study, planned activities, deliverables and targeted results. Once the funds have been released, the project can begin. The anthropological study, when it fits into the project, is often located in the needs assessment phase, integrated into the project. This is where the problem lies: the assessment phase takes place once the activities have been defined and approved. But once the terms of the project have been validated, there’s no way of changing them easily.
However, readjustments are sometimes essential, as shown by this example from Chad, detailed by Florence Chatot[ii], Groupe URD research manager, during a telephone interview. Groupe URD works in partnership with an NGO that combats female genital mutilation, and has carried out operational research focused on analyzing the dynamics and social norms associated with this practice. One of the NGO’s planned activities was the professional retraining of excisers by setting up IGAs to compensate for the loss of income associated with abandoning the practice. The study revealed that such a strategy was far too simplistic to address a problem as complex as the practice of excision. In fact, far from being restricted to a strictly female “excisor/excised” interaction, the study uncovered the existence of a real excision economy bringing together multiple community players with divergent interests who, through their social function in the practice, legitimize its persistence. In fact, one of the study’s recommendations was to reinvest the budget initially allocated to IGAs in prevention activities.
This example highlights the need for precise studies, carried out by people already familiar with the subject, prior to the definition of activities, in order to avoid readjustments whose costs – organizational, human and financial – are easy to imagine.
Some associations have the capacity to carry out socio-anthropological studies upstream of calls for projects. Médecins du Monde, for example, has even integrated anthropological expertise into its head office “Research and Learning” department. The infographic below, taken from their website, shows where the socio-anthropological study fits into the association’s program cycle. This organization is made possible by the relative freedom of Médecins du Monde, which has its own funds not earmarked for any particular project.
2. What kind of anthropology do we need for humanitarian aid?
The humanitarian community’s interest in anthropology is real, but it’s not so easy for the two disciplines to meet. The researcher is too often presented as a critical academic, rather than a source of proposals, or idealized as the “rescuer” of a failed project.
What kind of anthropology do we need for humanitarian aid? The argument put forward in this article is that anthropology must be at the service of action. It must not be subservient to it, but must keep as its objective the improvement of humanitarian action.
a. Making local action logics intelligible for international action
Anthropology is concerned with specific social functions, always trying to grasp the vision of the people living the phenomenon in order to understand it. Humanitarian action is often carried out by multinational players – the UN and its agencies – or by non-governmental actors operating outside their own borders – international NGOs. Anthropology’s interest here lies in making the link between this local scale and these international players. It makes the social exchanges of some intelligible to others. It can be mobilized both to help the “global” – the international players – and to support the “local” – the populations targeted by aid programs.
This is what is put forward by Sharon Abramowitz in her article “Ten Things that Anthropologists Can Do to Fight the West African Ebola Epidemic” (2014). In it, she sets out 10 actions that anthropologists can put in place to be useful to humanitarians, as part of the fight against Ebola in West Africa in 2014. I’ll use three of her proposals here.
1
/ Anthropologists can observe, report, interpret and explain local perspectives on external action. The aim here is not to understand for the sake of understanding, but to operationalize their understanding in order to propose arrangements, adapt humanitarian action and make it acceptable to local populations.
2/ Anthropologists can identify local health capacities and structures that can contribute to the epidemic response (in this case, Ebola). For the anthropologist, this means not only sharing “objective” knowledge of existing health structures, but also his or her knowledge of social constructs that could be useful to the humanitarian response in place. Faced with a disaster, populations invent and implement ways of responding and mitigating its effects. Anthropology’s interest lies in identifying these structures and bringing them to the fore, so that international action can integrate them into its response strategy.
3/ Anthropologists can share their local contacts with the global health experts coordinating the response. Whether they are researchers, members of civil society or leaders in the public or private sectors, these people can help and communicate with those involved in international action. Humanitarian response targets different scales and therefore needs contacts belonging to these different levels – local, national, international.
Anthropologists can also make the international humanitarian response intelligible to local populations. They play the role of “cultural mediators”[iii] with target populations.
This work can help defuse social tensions, as Faye has shown in the case of the burial of women who have died pregnant in Guinea[iv]. Among the Kissi, in Forest Guinea, it is forbidden to bury a pregnant woman with her child in her abdomen. Instead, the fetus is removed from the woman’s body and the two are buried separately. In the context of the Ebola epidemic, it was not feasible to operate on the woman to achieve this separation. Faye explains that “if it were impossible, for one reason or another, to extract the fetus from the mother’s womb, a rite of reparation consisting of offerings and various ceremonies would have to be sacrificed”. This is how the burial took place.
b. Operational research provides recommendations.
Action research”, or “operational/participatory research”, is a way of bringing together those involved in international action (development and humanitarian aid) and researchers. It’s not a question of erasing the specificities of these two disciplines. On the contrary, as Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan points out, “all action research must submit simultaneously to the rules of research and those of action, otherwise it will be nothing but bad research and bad action”[v].
Thus, action research must respect academic criteria such as the recognition of the researcher’s involvement in his object of study, and the taking into account of personal and subjective biases. This is all the more relevant given anthropology’s emphasis on participant observation, in which the researcher plays an active role in what he or she observes.
New constraints apply to “action research”: the delimitation of a more restricted subject, a shorter timeframe and more accessible writing.
Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan points out that research is subject to the same principles of selection and detour as development projects. The people targeted by the study select what they share in order to best serve their objectives. The researcher must be able to identify and integrate these processes.
Action research helps to guide action so that it is in line with the logic of the target populations.
The case detailed at a Médecins du Monde seminar[vi] on unwanted pregnancies in Côte d’Ivoire shows how the project was guided by the socio-anthropological study that preceded it.
The aim of the study was to “understand the difficulties encountered by Ivorian secondary school pupils in adhering to the prevention messages distributed in schools”[vii]. It revealed the coexistence of two opposing discourses that confined high-school students and reduced their capacity for action. The first, conveyed by peers and social networks, encouraged “early sexuality and a multiplication of partners”. The second, conveyed by adults and certain Ivorian institutions, makes sexuality a taboo subject and presents numerous barriers to access to contraception.
The approach described above enabled us to involve all stakeholders (social, educational, health) in questioning their perception of sexuality, taking into account their position in society and their capacity for action. Young people were integrated into the project by hosting radio programs to support behavioral change. Community agents were recruited to reduce the gap between young people’s experience of sexuality and the communities’ perception of it.
3. How can anthropology and humanitarianism be linked? The example of Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan’s “contractual model a. Three preferred areas of interaction
To link anthropology and development, J.-P. Olivier de Sardan presents the solution of the “contractual model”, in which “researchers and operators agree to define a clearly circumscribed zone of interaction and collaboration, without renouncing their specific identities”[viii]. This way of thinking about anthropology/humanitarianism is both broader and more specific than action research. The author details three “preferred areas of interaction”.
Firstly, the training of development workers in the method of ethnographic inquiry, which would protect them from certain clichés. Secondly, anthropologists should be involved in monitoring project drift. Lastly, new types of survey that are neither entirely quantitative nor entirely qualitative.
b. What type of survey?
i. Anthropo experts
J.-P. Olivier de Sardan proposes three ways of overcoming these survey problems. The first method is to call on socio-anthropologists as “experts”. These researchers are long-term specialists in a particular theme or region within a research framework, and bring these skills to the development framework and the constraints that go with it – constrained subject matter, speed of action, efficient delivery. The richness and accuracy of their contribution to the world of development is nourished by their knowledge, built up over many years in an academic setting.
This is what Desclaux and Anoko (2017) describe during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa in 2014. The WHO called on anthropologists, including some who had already been mobilized during the 2000-2001 epidemic in Uganda, the 2003 epidemic in Congo and so on. The scientists mobilized during these various episodes gathered and created knowledge on “the medico-technical aspects [of the disease], biosafety constraints, the history of population reactions during previous epidemics, and institutional dimensions”[ix].
When the epidemic broke out in Guinea, the WHO immediately called on these experts to “implement the humanization of public health measures, clarify people’s interpretations of the disease and the social logics underlying their reactions”[x].
ii. Mixed research
J.-P. Olivier de Sardan then suggests setting up doctorate programs in which development and research players become involved. They would jointly define the research theme, and the development players would commit to making a field site available to the doctoral student.
These research techniques have proved their worth. This was the case for research manager Florence Chatot, who worked in Niger on a water access program. Upstream of the project, she conducted a needs assessment in partnership with a water, sanitation and hygiene engineer. The study showed the importance of traditional wells for the target population and highlighted the difficulties, particularly financial, associated with borehole maintenance.
Thanks to the integration of social science and technology, the association has adapted its activities by proposing improved traditional wells that do not necessarily meet international standards, but correspond to the needs expressed by the people interviewed.
Linking technology and social science enables us to find technical innovations that are adapted to the field.
iii. Combining surveys
Finally, it is possible to implement a combination of individual and collective surveys in the medium and short term, in order to produce relevant observations in a timeframe acceptable to aid providers. Ethnographic surveys, which focus on individuals over a long period of time, can be carried out in conjunction with rapid collective surveys of the MARP (Méthode Accélérée de Recherche Participative) type.
J.P. Olivier de Sardan and Thomas Bierschenk have proposed the ECRIS (Enquête Collective Rapide d’Identification des Conflits et des Groupes Stratégiques) method or “framework”[xi]. This multi-site comparative analysis approach aims to capture local conflicts, contradictions and issues “from the inside”, in order to build qualitative indicators tailored to the field and the survey theme.
This methodology makes it possible to introduce non-standardized qualitative indicators and common lines of inquiry, which then guide the researchers’ individual fieldwork. It is useful for comparing several sites, but also meets needs linked to “the preparation, monitoring or assessment of development operations”.
The proposals set out in this article to facilitate the integration of anthropology into the humanitarian field are in line with the humanitarian sector’s constant aim to improve the quality of its programs. Anthropology, with its ethnographic method, and the anthropologist, with an outside viewpoint, help to highlight the complexity of the world on which the humanitarian and the developer are working. Anthropology brings a fresh perspective to humanitarian action, even if it is sometimes difficult to integrate.
Madeleine Trentesaux
Due to its interest, we are republishing this article by Madeleine Trentesaux which appeared in issue no. 49 of January 12, 2021.
Who is Madeleine Trentesaux?
Interested in humanitarian and public health issues, Madeleine Trentesaux is currently completing a Master’s degree in “Human Rights and Humanitarian Action” at Sciences Po Paris. Prior to this, she studied anthropology at the University of Paris Nanterre. She worked for a year as an intern at Fondation Mérieux, and took part in international solidarity and development projects in France, Armenia and India.
[i] De nombreuses publications existent sur l’intérêt de l’anthropologie pour l’humanitaire. Pour exemple, le dossier « Anthropologues et ONG : des liaisons fructueuses ? » piloté par Laëtitia Atlani-Duault.
[iii] Anoko J., Desclaux A., 2017, « L’anthropologie engagée dans la lutte contre Ebola (2014-2016) : approches, contributions et nouvelles questions » [accessible en ligne], in. Santé Publique, Vol. 29, n°4, pp.477-485. URL: https://www.cairn.info/revue-sante-publique-2017-4-page-477.htm.
[v] Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, 1995, « Conclusion », in. Anthropologie et développement. Essai en socio-anthropologie du changement social, Paris, éd. Karthala, p.192.
[vii] Magali Bouchon, 2019, « Innover dans les pratiques humanitaires par la recherche en socio-anthropologie », in. Alternatives Humanitaires, n°10, p.3.
[viii] J.P. Olivier de Sardan, ibid., p.194.
[ix] Anoko J., Desclaux A., ibid., p.479.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, ibid., « Arènes et groupes stratégiques », p.180.
Trained as an agricultural engineer, she has been working for 15 years in the Food Security and Livelihoods sector (SAME), emergency development responses in Africa, America and Asia with several NGOs (SI, ACF, CARE, TGH and IFRC). She has held several positions in the field: Program Manager, Program Coordinator and also Regional Coordinator.
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