Resilience and Conflict: Evidence from Mali

Abstract

Exploring the contextualized relationship between conflict and household resilience is a key element of policymaking under the Humanitarian and Development nexus. This paper provides new evidence on conflict and resilience from resilience-enhancing projects in Mali’s Central Sahel cross-border area. In particular, it explores the presence of determinants of resilience that explains conflict exposure; investigates the adoption of conflict-specific coping mechanisms and explores contextual specificities of local resilience capacity. The findings show that certain types of agricultural households have a higher probability of exposure to conflict, while no evidence of public transfers (e.g., cash transfers) increasing the level of exposure to conflicts is found. The results also show that there are elements which explain the adoption (or lack thereof) of coping mechanisms against conflict: social networks play an essential enabling role, as well as education, the level of food consumption, and to some extent, access to public transfers. Finally, the results suggest that female-headed households need more support in order to engage in coping strategies. This paper suggests that resilience-enhancing interventions and analysis require deeper knowledge of the context, paying special attention to the drivers of conflict and coping strategies adopted by households.