ICRC special appeal: Moving from relief to resilience, strengthening food security in conflict

By the Climate Centre

The ICRC earlier this month published its special appeal 2025 for strengthened food security, saying that “[m]illions of people all over the world face the daily challenge of securing enough food, a crisis that demands urgent action and support.

“Armed conflict and insecurity are the primary drivers of this crisis, with displaced families barely surviving on just one meal a day and farmers struggling to feed their households amid violence.”

But the International Committee argues that climate change “worsens the situation by damaging crops, displacing communities, and destabilizing food systems [while] global food markets remain volatile, with trade disruptions, currency depreciation, and rising import costs making food unaffordable for the most vulnerable.” Even when the guns fall silent, it adds, rebuilding lives can seem an insurmountable challenge.

The ICRC says its own “multidisciplinary and holistic approach aims to address both individual needs and systemic issues, in the short, medium and long term.”

Even when the guns fall silent, rebuilding can seem an insurmountable challenge

The way a conflict is fought – including the level of respect for rules of international humanitarian law – can directly or indirectly affect food security, the ICRC says.

Parties to fighting “have the primary responsibility to ensure the basic needs of civilians in areas under their control are met.”

In promoting IHL and carrying out protection work, the ICRC “engages with the groups that can determine the fate of people affected by armed conflict to influence their attitude and behaviour, to improve the protection of civilians, facilitate access to the communities in need, and improve security for humanitarian action.”

The ICRC provides food and cash, and carries out interventions to prevent or treat malnutrition, including “a wide variety of climate-smart agricultural programmes, as well as livestock, fishing and other livelihoods support activities to help people produce food and restore their income.“

This year, the ICRC is aiming to support at least 2.2 million people obtain adequate food, nearly 6 million to produce food more sustainably, and at least 32 million with improved access to water, energy and/or sanitation.

For conflict-affected pastoralists, livestock isn’t just an asset, it’s survival, the ICRC says, launching its special appeal for food security. In Ethiopia’s Somali region this year, it supported the vaccination of nearly 300,000 animals against prevalent diseases (pictured) and strengthened the resilience of more than 90,000 people in the region’s Lagahida district. (Photo: ICRC)