Food scarcity is fanning flames of ‘war on terror’
Every country experiencing civil unrest due to rising militant Islamist violence is facing resource shortages directly linked to food insecurity, according to new research by British scientists.
Of the 17 countries identified as being most at risk of food riots, 14 are Muslim-majority countries, and at least 10 are subject to ongoing US-led counterterrorism operations. This includes the countries where extremists linked to the “Islamic State,” al-Qaeda and Boko Haram are operating, namely Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya and Nigeria.
Link between food shortages and violence
The peer-reviewed study, published last month in the journal Sustainability, builds on growing evidence that a lack of “access to critical resources, including food, energy and water, can, in certain circumstances, lead to violent demonstrations”.
The team led by researchers at the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) at Anglia Ruskin University compares a range of indices of governance to determine how well they can be used to predict rioting and domestic conflict in fragile countries across the world. The most accurate, the research found, is the “political instability” score of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.
The study concluded that when the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) food price index goes above 148, countries with the highest levels of fragility as defined by the World Bank’s indicators have a 36.7 percent risk of experiencing food riots. Because an upsurge in food prices can mean food is less affordable for the poor, price spikes often translate into effective scarcity for large numbers of economically marginalised people.
While food prices and state fragility are therefore critical indicators of the risk of social unrest, as study co-author Dr Aled Jones said, “other factors will play out in whether riots are seen and importantly what the impacts of those riots are – mainly government responses to those food price shocks”.
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