Alertnet: How do you think beyond food aid in a conflict?

VIEWPOINT: Luca Alinovi, Gunter Hemrich and Luca Russo from the U.N. FAO

"For too long, we simply equated a food security problem with a food gap, and a food gap with a food aid response." Dan Maxwell said this in a speech once. But achieving food security in protracted crisis situations - which are often accompanied by violent conflict and may last for decades - is a major challenge. A new book "Beyond Relief: Food Security in Protracted Crisis" draws together concrete examples from Somalia, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo to look at what worked - and what didn't. It asks if long-term food security is ever adequately considered in crises, and if food aid is supplied as an automatic default response. In fact, the book confirms that response usually consists of a long series of short-term "emergency" interventions that often overlook the problems that caused the crises in the first place.

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