Resumen de Food security and migration in Africa: a validation of theoretical links using case studies from literature

Luca Mulazzani, Rosa Manrique, Catalina Stancu, Giulio Malorgio

• The connection between food security and migration is increasingly discussed by both international agencies and academic literature. However, despite several improvements, we continue to know little about the complex causal-effect relations that link these aspects and, in particular, how much migration patterns are affected by food security issues and how much, as a feedback, migration can affect food security, on both the origin and destination areas. This paper aims firstly to draw a general framework of this nexus and then to validate it using empirical literature on the African continent. A few common points can be emphasized for the continent: due to structural and familiar characteristics, different strategies based on opportunity costs or risk minimization (including food security aspects) may emerge; individuals often migrate following household strategies; multi-nodal households are emerging; land grabbing and land tenure security represent important drivers to be considered; emergencies or critical situations often cause the erosion of women rights. In many situations, the poverty trap prevents most food insecure households to leave marginal lands.