ABSTRACT
The hopes for world peace and stability raised by the end of the Cold War have been replaced by the reality of many fresh and many persistent conflicts throughout the world, which pose difficult new challenges for the international community, and divert a substantial share of human and financial resources, national and international, from longterm development to relief operations. Armed conflict is linked with food insecurity in a vicious circle of cause and effect. The most obvious effect of conflict is the acute deprivation, malnutrition and famine it causes in the short term, often combined with protracted post-conflict food insecurity following the destruction of the production base and related infrastructure. It is this aspect in particular of the food insecurity/conflict relationship which prompted the 1996 World Food Summit to call, under the first objective of its action plan for food security, l for the strengthening of conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms [World Food Summit, 1996]. Less well understood is the impact that food insecurity may have on the causes of conflict or, inversely, how food security can contribute to conflict prevention.
