Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies

FooCo - Food Security and Conflict Dynamics in northern Kenya

Status

running

Topics

Violent Environments and Infrastructures

The project FooCo—Food Security and Conflict Dynamics in northern Kenya—was a collaborative research project of BICC and Caritas Germany, which is financed by Caritas Germany. A pilot study on the interrelations between acute food crises and violent conflicts is conducted with the view to developing a larger transdisciplinary research project on the same topic with diverse humanitarian actors. The pilot study used Marsabit county, which is strongly affected by food crises and violent conflict, as a case study combining qualitative social science methods with visualisation methods of participatory rural appraisals. The empirical research was conducted in close collaboration with the local non-governmental organisations CARITAS Marsabit and PACIDA, which are active in the humanitarian and peace-building sectors. The study aimed to identify the interrelations between acute food crises and violent conflicts to assess local communities’ diverse needs and potentials to positively transform the local conflicts through humanitarian and peace-building support. Field research was undertaken in November 2022, with a research report expected to be written by March 2023.