Households Food Security and Resilience to Drought and Conflict in South Wollo Zone, Ethiopia
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Date
2025-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Armed conflicts cause food insecurity and famine by triggering the disruption and destruction of food systems. The conflict that erupted in northern Ethiopia lasted from 2020 to 2022 and affected millions of people. This resulted in severe damage to the food security, livelihoods and social dynamics of communities in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. Besides, due to climate change, drought conditions are increasing from time to time, threatening the food security of communities reliant on rainfed agriculture. Drought has become protracted and has resulted in a widespread food insecurity crisis. South Wollo Zone, already vulnerable to climate shocks, suffered severe destruction and loss of life during the northern Ethiopia conflict. The study analyzed household food security and resilience of conflict and drought-affected households by synthesizing the impact, analyzing drought trends, identifying food security determinant factors, and coping strategies deployed by households during adversities through the use of longitudinal meteorological data from 1981 to 2022, and establishing a pre-post conflict food security and resilience assessment. Descriptive and quasi-experimental designs were employed for pre-post retrospective data gathered from 422 randomly selected households, while literature reviews, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions were analyzed using the thematic analysis method. Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index helped to analyze the direction and magnitude of drought trends. Besides, Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis, and the Household Food Balance Model were used for the food security and resilience component. A recall bias analysis was conducted for retrospective data using the Flashbulb memory test method as a complementary approach to the study to determine statistical reliability of recall data in food security and resilience study. The study revealed that conflict and drought significantly undermine household food security. Both the short-term and long-term drought conditions have increased between 2000 and 2015. The significant downward trend in SPEI highlights increasing drought xviii severity and frequency. The average per capita calorie availability drops from 1,789 kcal pre-conflict to 1,420 kcal at post-conflict, below the Ministry of Health recommendation of 2,300 kcal. In contrast, the coping strategy index increased for the same period. It was found that livestock ownership, agricultural index, work ratio, and age of the household head were positively associated with food security. In contrast, larger family size, exposure to drought, and exposure to conflict and aid were negatively associated. While the resilience capacity index was reduced from 45.1 to 38.8 after the conflict, assets contributed 60.55% to resilience capacity, but access to basic services was not relevant in determining resilience post-conflict. Households with high conflict exposure experienced a 7.85-point greater decline in resilience capacity compared to a 3.32-point decline for low-exposure at p-value <0.01. Whereas, a statistically significant decline in RCI by approximately 6.43-point for low drought-exposed households but no statistically significant differential impact of drought between groups. The study offers policy recommendations to build productive livelihoods through asset building, livelihood diversification, recovery programs integrating conflict-sensitive and peace-building initiatives to enhance food security and foster self-reliance, acknowledging the compounding nature of conflict and drought. It also recommends the integration of complementary statistical approach such as the Flashbulb memory test to examine recall bias in retrospective food security and resilience study to enhance reliability of data for statistical inference.
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Keywords
Coping strategies, Drought trend, Food security, Household resilience, Social dynamics, SPEI, Violent conflict, Vulnerability