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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]

Highlights • A review of the different narratives about food systems is proposed. • The way sustainability is defined in those narratives is reviewed. • Trade-offs between the different dimensions of sustainability are unavoidable. • A framework identifying how to transition to sustainable food systems is elaborated. Abstract The concept of food system has gained prominence in recent years amongst both scholars and policy-makers. Experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have in particular discussed the nature and origin of the "unsustainability" of our modern food systems. These efforts tend, however, to be framed within distinctive disciplinary narratives. In this paper we propose to explore these narratives and to shed light on the explicit -or implicit- epistemological assumptions, mental models, and disciplinary paradigms that underpin those. The analysis indicates that different views and interpretations prevail amongst experts about the nature of the "crisis", and consequently about the research and priorities needed to "fix" the problem. We then explore how sustainability is included in these different narratives and the link to the question of healthy diets. The analysis reveals that the concept of sustainability, although widely used by all the different communities of practice, remains poorly defined, and applied in different ways and usually based on a relatively narrow interpretation. In so doing we argue that current attempts to equate or subsume healthy diets within sustainability in the context of food system may be misleading and need to be challenged. We stress that trade-offs between different dimensions of food system sustainability are unavoidable and need to be navigated in an explicit manner when developing or implementing sustainable food system initiatives. Building on this overall analysis, a framework structured around several entry points including outcomes, core activities, trade-offs and feedbacks is then proposed, which allows to identify key elements necessary to support the transition toward sustainable food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently shaping a large part of the development and humanitarian agenda the concept of resilience has been embraced by a large number of donors, development agencies, and international NGOs. As a consequence, an increasing number of development interventions that aim at strengthening the resilience of vulnerable households and communities are now being implemented across the globe. Along with these interventions, a growing and urgent call for rigorous monitoring and evaluation has emerged. Unfortunately, the very few resilience measurement frameworks that are available are often too “academics”, data-demanding, and therefore poorly adapted to the reality faced by practitioners on the ground. In this paper we develop a resilience impact assessment framework which addresses this challenge. Using an ex-post treatment vs. control approach, the framework satisfies the requirement for rigor that should be found in any proper impact assessment framework, but remains operational in the data- and resource-constrained situations which characterize most of the current interventions in the field. We illustrate the approach through the case of the Enhancing Resilience program that was implemented by the World Food Programme and its partners in Bangladesh during 2011–13. [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]

• Food systems are currently locked into unsustainable trajectories due to various self-reinforcing dynamics and incumbents' strategies. • Political economy is useful to reveal the responsibilities of different actors in creating those locks-in. • The profit-driven nature of innovation creates a random selection process that is incapable of steering food systems towards sustainability. • Pathways toward sustainable food systems exist but following them will require structural transformation of those systems' governance. This paper explores the conditions under which the changes leading to the Great Transformation of food systems called upon by a growing number of international experts and development agencies, will (or not) happen. After discussing the meanings of 'transformation' in the specific context of food systems, we draw on different elements of political economy to show how various self-reinforcing dynamics are contributing to lock food systems in their current unsustainable trajectories. Those include the concentration of economic and market power in the hands of the Big Food transnational corporations but also other actors' ideology, policy incoherence, national interests or culturally-embedded aspirations, which together create irreconcilable trade-offs and tensions between divergent individual and societal objectives and prevent the system from aligning toward a more sustainable trajectory. In this context, while innovation is often presented as a 'game-changer', we show how the current profit-driven nature of its evolutionary selection creates a random, adirectional, process incapable of steering food systems towards sustainability. We argue that unless those different issues are tackled all together in a resolutely normative, global, and prescriptive manner in which science would have a new role to play, there are serious risks that the Great Transformation will not happen. Based on these analyses, we identify pathways to move the systems past its current locks-in and steer it toward its long-awaited sustainable transformation. In doing so we demonstrate that what is needed is not just a transformation of the food systems themselves, but a transformation of the governance of those food systems as well. [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]

Summary: This paper is based on a global review of fisheries decentralization programs (co-management) in sub-Saharan Africa. Partly challenging the current narrative, but in line with experience in other sectors (e.g., forestry), the review shows that the outcomes of these decentralizations have not been systematically positive. In most cases, fisheries co-management failed to improve governance, but simply altered the distribution of power and responsibility amongst the different stakeholders. In this new political landscape, poorly designed reforms have enabled a variety of (usual and new) local actors to advance their own agendas, often at the detriment of the direct end-users (fisherfolk). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper analyzes the phenomenon of fish-for-sex in small-scale fisheries and discusses its apparent links to HIV/AIDS and transactional sex practices. The research reveals that fish-for-sex is not an anecdotal phenomenon but a practice increasingly reported in many different developing countries, with the largest number of cases observed in Sub-Saharan African inland fisheries. An overview of the main narratives that attempt to explain the occurrence of FFS practices is presented, along with other discourses and preconceptions, and their limits discussed. The analysis outlines the many different and complex dimensions of fish-for-sex transactions. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we first look retrospectively at the perceptions embraced by academics, international agencies and practitioners of the relation between fisheries and poverty in developing countries and we try to identify the underlying paradigms which have structured these perceptions. The review reveals how the debate has focused on the economic (low income) and biological (overexploitation) aspects of the problem. We then revisit these perceptions in the light of the recent conclusions drawn from other sectors and in particular from the new “consensus” on poverty proposed by the international community. Incorporation of the recent research on poverty helps to show how socio-institutional mechanisms governing people’s access to fisheries resources––rather than the resources themselves––play such a critical role in vulnerability to poverty. Finally, a typology identifying four different categories of intrasectoral exclusion mechanisms is developed and illustrated through empirical studies derived from African and Asian fisheries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]