DUSHANBE, March 30, 2016, Asia-Plus — FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva Graziano da Silva says that fighting hunger and boosting resilient rural livelihoods can lead to peace dividends.
Graziano da Silva told members of the United Nations Security Council on March 29 that improving food security can help build sustainable peace and even ward off looming conflict.
“We know that actions to promote food security can help prevent a crisis, mitigate its impacts and promote post-crisis recovery and healing,” Graziano da Silva said.
Conflicts are a key driver of protracted crises, where hunger is three times more likely than in the rest of the developing world, while the countries with the highest levels of food insecurity are also those most affected by conflict.
That is borne out in cases ranging from Syria and Yemen to South Sudan and Somalia. He also cited post-conflict Angola and Nicaragua, post-genocide Rwanda and post-independence Timor-Leste as cases where peace and food security were mutually reinforcing.
The opposite can also prove true, leading to a relapse into violence.
Failure to boost food security can jeopardize stabilization processes, a risk currently faced by Yemen and also in Central African Republic, where half the population is now food insecure, Graziano da Silva said.
Food security assistance can be used even during conflicts, he added, noting that FAO”s final push to eliminate the livestock disease Rinderpest took place amid war and required an approach allowing animal health workers to gain access to cattle.
Syria is another example. Today, many farmers have fled their lands, but those that have remained are growing almost two-thirds of their pre-crisis wheat output, helped by FAO”s distribution of seeds. That”s inadequate but “has been critical to prevent even worse displacement and to set the foundations for rebuilding” the country, he said.
Fostering rural development can also facilitate peace building efforts.
International efforts in favor of peace will be more effective if they include measures to boost the resilience of rural households and communities, as it is they and their livelihoods that bear the brunt of the damage in contemporary conflicts.
Efforts to support farming and rural livelihoods can be a motivating rationale for bringing people together after conflict, and offer “peace dividends” by contributing to the sustainability of peace, he said.
