How does armed conflict intersect with poverty dynamics, and how can policy and programming effectively address work at the poverty-conflict nexus?

The majority of the world’s poor today are located in FCVS, and these trends are expected to intensify. By 2030, projections suggest that anywhere between 43% and 80% of the world’s extreme poor will live in FCV contexts. Several risks are also noted in the literature to be increasing, including conflict and violent extremism, but also climate change, pandemics, and food insecurity.

These trends and risks pose significant constraints to poverty reduction. There is a mutually reinforcing relationship between poverty and conflict: poverty contributes to conflict, and conflict can impoverish people or deepen poverty. The likelihood that conflict turns extreme poverty into chronic poverty and also impoverishes, means that policy makers need to consider how to address chronic poverty and impoverishment in the context of conflict and conflict-prevention. Experiencing multiple shocks and living in conflict-prone areas have similar and mutually reinforcing effects on wellbeing trajectories.

As such, people living in conflict-affected areas facing multiple sources of vulnerability, both nationally and subnationally, must be a target group for international agencies and donors working to get to zero poverty.

CPAN has produced a suite of research over the years linked to the poverty dynamics and conflict nexus. These have been supported by a variety of funders mentioned within each publication.

Photo credits: Displaced women carrying their belongings arrive in Bossangoa, Central African Republic, after fleeing violence in their village. Photo: © UNHCR/B. Heger