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• Using the data from northern Burkina Faso, the impacts of armed conflict on the local food system and its traders are investigated. • On average local food traders experienced a 40% to 50% contraction in their activities due to insecurity. • The socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the system's positive deviants are explored. • Although these positive deviants display statistically 'better' performance, their individual resilience was not sufficient to maintain the resilience of the whole system. • We discuss how the concept of resilience can, in some cases, hamper experts' ability to anticipate food systems' collapse. Armed conflicts are among the major disruptions affecting local food systems in low- and middle-income countries, having devastating effects on populations' food security. The understanding of the mechanisms linking conflicts to food insecurity is limited, however, by a lack of data on how these conflicts affect the different actors of local food systems. In this study, we aim to address this gap, using empirical data from the northeast region of Burkina Faso where an active conflict is occurring. The objective is to document and analyze the impacts of that conflict on the functioning of the local food system and more specifically on the resilience of the traders that operate from Sebba, the capital of the Yagha province. The analysis reveals, first, the magnitude of the disruption. On average, these local food traders experienced a 40%-50% contraction in their activities compared to the situation prior to the conflict. Not all operators are affected with the same intensity, however. Transporters appeared to be impacted more severely than retailers/vendors. Econometric models are then used to explore the socio-economic characteristics of these different actors. The analysis shows that, contrarily to what is often observed with farmers, the level of assets did not seem to contribute significantly to traders' resilience. Instead, having recently relocated to Sebba appears more important to ensure the level of adaptability needed to respond to the rapidly deteriorating situation. The analysis also reveals that the resilience of the "positive deviants" (those operators who did better than the rest of the group) materialized essentially through their capacity to buffer more effectively shocks' impacts but it did not spare them from facing drastic contractions in their trade business. Eventually, the resilience of those positive deviants was not sufficient to maintain the resilience of the whole system. It ensues a catastrophic drop in the quantity of food traded (up to 50% for certain products), leading to the collapse of the system and a 10-fold increase in the food insecurity of the local population. The paper concludes by weighing the usefulness of the concept of resilience in the context of severe disruptions of the food systems (such as armed conflicts), emphasizes the risk that an unconditional promotion/adoption of that concept may reduce our ability to anticipate or even to envision collapse scenarios. On the brighter side, our analysis demonstrates that collecting specific information about the food system operators can help predict, and possibly prevent, such collapses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Following a precise evaluation protocol that was applied to a pool of 202 articles published between 2003 and 2014, this paper evaluates the existing evidence of how and to what extent capture fisheries and aquaculture contribute to improving nutrition, food security, and economic growth in developing and emergent countries. In doing so we evaluate the quality and scientific rigor of that evidence, identify the key conclusions that emerge from the literature, and assess whether these conclusions are consistent across the sources. The results of the assessment show that while some specific topics are consistently and rigorously documented, thus substantiating some of the claims found in the literature, other areas of research still lack the level of disaggregated data or an appropriate methodology to reach consistency and robust conclusions. More specifically, the analysis reveals that while fish contributes undeniably to nutrition and food security, the links between fisheries/aquaculture and poverty alleviation are complex and still unclear. In particular national and household level studies on fisheries’ contributions to poverty alleviation lack good conceptual models and produce inconsistent results. For aquaculture, national and household studies tend to focus on export value chains and use diverse approaches. They suggest some degree of poverty alleviation and possibly other positive outcomes for adopters, but these outcomes also depend on the small-scale farming contexts and on whether adoption was emergent or due to development assistance interventions. Impacts of fish trade on food security and poverty alleviation are ambiguous and confounded by a focus on international trade and a lack of consistent methods. The influences of major drivers (decentralization, climate change, demographic transition) are still insufficiently documented and therefore poorly understood. Finally the evaluation reveals that evidence-based research and policy narratives are often disconnected, with some of the strongest and long-lasting policy narratives lacking any strong and rigorous evidence-based validation. Building on these different results, this paper identifies six key gaps facing policy-makers, development practitioners, and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Two opposing views exist in the literature on the potential role that international fish trade plays in economic development. While some claim that fish trade has a pro-poor effect, others denounce the negative effect of fish export on local populations’ food security and doubt its contributions to the macro-economy. In this paper, we explore this debate in sub-Saharan Africa. Our analysis did not find any evidence of direct negative impact of fish trade on food security; neither did it find evidence that international fish trade generates positive, pro-poor outcomes. This paper discusses the possible reasons for this apparent lack of development impact and highlights the unsupported assumptions underlying the current discourse about international fish trade. We suggest that, given lack of evidence for the development benefits of fish trade between Africa and developed countries, fisheries policy could consider support for regional (Africa-to-Africa) trade that meets the growing African demand for lower-value fish. Means of overcoming barriers to intra-African trade in fish are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]