Food insecurity
Breaking the Cycle: Food Insecurity, Protection and Armed Conflict in Colombia
Conflict. Hunger. Protection risks. In Colombia, these three phenomena have been interconnected in a reinforcing cycle for decades. Efforts to address each component of this negative cycle are vital, but approaches are often disconnected, leading to short-term or incomplete solutions. As a result, communities struggle against growing odds to build resilience or stability.
Using participatory methods, a research team led by CARE, the World Food Programme (WFP), and InterAction interviewed 16 focus groups in 2 departments of Colombia to learn directly from diverse perspectives what threats, vulnerabilities, capacities, and risksi affected people faced. Though the negative cycle effect was widespread, differences between and within communities meant that often people experienced armed conflict, hunger, and protection risks in vastly different ways, indicating that one-size-fits-all solutions won’t be enough to bring lasting positive change.
Despite the differences in personal and communal experience of risk, two categories of variables emerged that defined how individuals were affected by conflict, hunger, and protection risks: context-specific conflict dynamics and institutionalized discrimination. Read More...
Using participatory methods, a research team led by CARE, the World Food Programme (WFP), and InterAction interviewed 16 focus groups in 2 departments of Colombia to learn directly from diverse perspectives what threats, vulnerabilities, capacities, and risksi affected people faced. Though the negative cycle effect was widespread, differences between and within communities meant that often people experienced armed conflict, hunger, and protection risks in vastly different ways, indicating that one-size-fits-all solutions won’t be enough to bring lasting positive change.
Despite the differences in personal and communal experience of risk, two categories of variables emerged that defined how individuals were affected by conflict, hunger, and protection risks: context-specific conflict dynamics and institutionalized discrimination. Read More...
Guatemala: A food insecurity constant reality
From 2020 to 2022, 21.1% of Guatemala’s population was affected by severe food insecurity, with a gender food gap of 0.3 million. According to a study conducted by CARE in Guatemala in 2022 in Guatemala’s dry corridor, 42% of households had exhausted all grain from the previous harvest; 33% had grain reserves lasting only three more months or less; 21% of households incurred debt to purchase food; 38% of households reduced their meal sizes; 22% of respondents ate less or abstained entirely, prioritizing their children's meals; 31% skipped at least one meal daily. IPC predicted that food security is expected to deteriorate from June to August 2023, due to the rise in food prices. In total, it is estimated that approximately 604 thousand people (3% of the population) are in Emergency (Phase 4) and close to 3.6 million (21% of the population) in Crisis (Phase 3).
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