Refugees and conflict-affected people: Integrating displaced communities into food systems

Conflict and climate change have been key factors underlying the recent surge in global hunger numbers. People living in fragile rural contexts are most at risk. Food insecurity inflicted by conflict, climatic, and economic shocks, often in combination, is a main driver of forced migration and refugee flows. Such movements of people, whether within the borders of their own countries or crossing borders, often have adverse effects on food availability and access in host communities and areas left behind. Integrating conflict-affected people into food systems—either in their places of origin or the locales to which they have fled—could help them substantially to rebuild their lives. Furthermore, strengthening food systems and food security would remove at least one potential source of competition and conflict. This chapter examines approaches and innovations to more fully include forcibly displaced and conflict-affected people (including host communities) in food systems, and the benefits of inclusion for these populations and society more broadly.