Gendered Dimensions of Hunger in Peacebuilding (GDHP)
Principal Investigator: Caitriona Dowd
Funder: Irish Research Council and Department of Foreign Affairs
Evidence shows that acute food insecurity is increasing; violent conflict is its single greatest driver; and conflict, hunger, and peacebuilding efforts are all profoundly gendered. While the relationships between conflict and hunger, hunger and gender, and gender and peacebuilding have been explored extensively, the precise ways in which hunger, food and its gendered dimensions have been addressed in peacebuilding practice and policy are poorly understood. The Gendered Dimensions of Hunger in Peacebuilding (GDHP) project is a three-year research project beginning in June 2023, that aims to address this gap.
The GDHP project is co-funded by the Irish Research Council and Ireland’s Department for Foreign Affairs, and it is co-led by Caitriona Dowd at UCD, and Liezelle Kumalo at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa. The project sets out to explore the interplay of gender, hunger and peacebuilding, by producing high-quality, original comparative evidence on how, when and why gendered dimensions of hunger and food rights have been integrated in peacebuilding in diverse contexts.
The project utilises a mixed-methods comparative design that proceeds in three stages: first, a comparative systematic content analysis of specific policy documents on conflict and peacebuilding, gender and equality, and hunger and food security. Second, a comparative quantitative analysis of the content of peace agreements, including systematic mapping of references to – and initiatives addressing – hunger, starvation and their gendered dimensions in local and national peace agreements and transitional justice processes. Third, an in-depth qualitative analysis of three key case studies of diverse contexts of insecurity and peacebuilding: South Sudan, Liberia, and South Africa.
The resulting research aims to generate new and original evidence systematically mapping and analysing the integration of gendered dimensions of hunger and food rights in peacebuilding.