Non-state armed groups as food system actors in Somalia and Haiti

ABSTRACT

Violent conflict is the primary driver of food crises worldwide. However, our understanding of the specific role non-state armed groups (NSAGs) play in food systems remains incomplete. There is limited evidence on how NSAGs shape food systems, including through forms of (non-)violent regulation; where NSAGs intersect with different stages of the food value chain, beyond production alone; and comparative analysis of NSAGs across diverse contexts, security environments and food systems. This study addresses these gaps through comparative analysis of NSAG food system engagement in Haiti and South-Central Somalia, drawing on primary qualitative data. We find that i) NSAGs are active at every stage of the food system; ii) this activity is often systematic in nature; and iii) NSAG engagement shares several commonalities across Haiti and Somalia, despite very different contexts. In identifying this, we make several contributions, including advancing research on conflict and hunger to highlight precise mechanisms by which violent actors disrupt and shape food systems; and contributing to research on rebel and criminal governance by highlighting a heretofore neglected domain of armed actor governance (food systems).

KEYWORDS:

• Conflict
• non-state armed groups
• food security
• food systems
• rebel-criminal governance

Introduction

Globally, an estimated quarter of a billion people were acutely food-insecure in 2022, with conflict and insecurity identified as the largest single driver.¹ More than half the population in the most extreme category of food insecurity were in Somalia (214,000 people), and for the first time in the history of the Global Report on Food Crisis, this included populations in Haiti (19,200 people in ‘Catastrophe’ levels of food insecurity). While Somalia and Haiti represent two very different contexts in many key respects, they share an experience of high levels of violent conflict involving non-state armed groups (NSAGs), coupled with rapidly escalating food crises. This study explores the intersection of these factors, comparatively analysing the role of NSAGs in each country’s food system. In particular, by mapping the patterns of interactions of NSAGs with different stages of the food system, the paper foregrounds the active role played by NSAGs in the day-to-day operations of key processes and infrastructures that regulate how food is produced, transported, traded, and eventually accessed by communities in these conflict environments.

Despite a growing interest in understanding the relationship between violent conflict and food security,² the role of NSAGs has so far been relatively neglected in research, policy, and practice. There is still limited knowledge on how conflict actors are directly involved in food systems, especially in areas controlled by NSAGs, where the reach of the state and actors involved in humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding initiatives is often disrupted. Given the growing number of NSAGs active in current conflicts and populations living in territories under their influence or rule,³ analysing how NSAGs engage in food systems is of crucial importance for both understanding and responding to food crises in conflict contexts.

This study seeks to address these complexities through a contextual and comparative analysis of the precise ways NSAGs engage different food system stages, actors, and processes in the contexts of Haiti and Somalia. To do so, we draw on primary data from interviews with humanitarian and policy professionals and groups discussions with local communities in both contexts, conducted between March and November 2022 in Port-au-Prince and South-Central Somalia.

Our analysis leads to three key findings. First, NSAGs in both contexts actively interact with, and shape, the food system at multiple and co-occurring points – from pre/production, to transport and distribution, to trade and, ultimately, consumption – which cannot be understood in isolation. Second, NSAGs’ engagement in both countries is systematic and non-random, indicating a level of organisation that is typically unaccounted for in studies on looting, predation, and other opportunistic food system interventions. Third, while acknowledging vast differences in the profiles, agendas, and control of NSAGs in both settings, we also note meaningful similarities in their engagement with food systems that point to the potential value of further comparative analysis of cases across the rebel-criminal governance spectrum.

Taken together, these findings make several contributions to current scholarship and practice. In conflict studies, we contribute to the study of NSAGs by expanding scholarship on non-state governance into the domain of food governance and policy. This also helps advance the specific field of food systems and food policy research, by furthering an agenda of looking beyond the state as the only – or even primary – stakeholder, and introducing a heretofore neglected actor, the NSAG. Finally, by undertaking a comparative analysis across contexts, we add to political science scholarship and, in particular, to a growing body of work that challenges the rebel-criminal governance binary. These contributions have significant implications for research, practice, and policy in the development, peacebuilding, and humanitarian fields. Ultimately, gaining a more nuanced understanding of the ways NSAGs interact with, and seek to shape, disrupt and/or regulate food systems in conflict environments can help inform responses and policies that mitigate and support recovery from conflict-driven food crises.

Literature review

Conflict and food systems

Since 2020, conflict and insecurity has been identified as the single largest driver of food crises worldwide.⁴ While traditional approaches to food crises tend to frame these as ‘natural’ disasters, and/or inevitable byproducts of conflict, more recent scholarship has sought to re-cast conflict-driven food crisis as the (at times, deliberate) outcome of strategic, political actions.⁵ At the same time, advances in the availability of granular data on both food security conditions, and violent conflict patterns, have facilitated increasingly detailed analysis of the micro-dynamics of conflict and food security outcomes.⁶

To date, however, most research on this topic suffers from a neglect of the complexity of food systems as a whole.⁷ Much of the research concerned with conflict and food has tended to focus on food security specifically as an outcome. Historically, food security research and policy were concerned narrowly with increasing production to secure sufficient supply and through this, ensure access to food for populations in need. Over time, this narrow lens widened to consider a much broader range of relevant factors along the food value chain, from production, to transport, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal, referred to as the food system.⁸

Despite decades of research in agriculture, food science and ecology understanding food systems as complex webs of interactions of which food security is one of many possible outcomes, interdisciplinary research has generally lagged behind in adopting a systems approach. Moreover, even though a food systems approach in conflict contexts is growing,⁹ it remains particularly under-represented in interdisciplinary work bringing insights from conflict studies – including the range of relevant conflict actors, discussed further below. Much existing work focuses on armed groups’ interface with isolated aspects of the food system. For example, research has extensively documented armed groups’ impacts on production – in particular, looting and predation of agricultural products¹⁰; access¹¹; weaponising food resources against civilian populations¹² or humanitarian relief.¹³ These studies illuminate important aspects of armed group activities and engagement with food. However, a food systems approach requires us to understand how stakeholders interact with different facets of this complex system – often at multiple points simultaneously, and with potential for indirect and cascading effects. We also have a particularly weak grasp of the effects that disruptions like conflict can have on food systems in urban areas,¹⁴ a gap that has been particularly remarked upon in the case of Haiti.¹⁵ Without a systems approach, our understanding of how NSAGs shape the food landscape across all stages from input to disposal – and through these stages, ultimately, affecting food security – remains incomplete.

NSAGs and food systems

The conflict-hunger nexus has received increasing attention in recent scholarship. However, much of the existing work on this relationship has tended to aggregate diverse forms of political violence under a single homogenising category of ‘conflict’, often obscuring key differences in strategies, tactics, dynamics and perpetrators.¹⁶ Where there has been greater differentiation between conflict actors, research on the state’s role in food crises has grown most notably,¹⁷ but somewhat surprisingly, NSAGs are yet to receive significant attention as key players in the food system.

What research is available on NSAGs and their particular engagement with food systems, remains largely limited to individual studies of a handful of high-profile groups during periods of acute crisis.¹⁸ For example, the NSAG known as Al-Shabaab (AS) in Somalia is among the more frequently studied because of its critical role in limiting humanitarian access during the 2011–2012 famine in Somalia.¹⁹ However, much of this research centres on the peak of the 2011–2012 Horn of Africa crisis, meaning we know relatively little about the group’s ongoing engagement in food governance and policy in territories it controls. Moreover, owing to a dearth of studies on other territory-holding NSAGs and their engagement with food systems, what we do know about AS lacks comparative context, limiting our ability to determine what is unique, and what might be common across a range of contexts. Consequently, we know relatively little about how different NSAGs engage with food resources in conflict, and how different tactics or violence profiles result in different (or similar) outcomes across discrete contexts.

This lacuna is mirrored in food policy research, where the field has witnessed concerted efforts over time to expand its parameters for relevant actors and consider food policy stakeholders above, below and beyond the level of the state alone – including private corporations, international organisations and civil society stakeholders.²⁰ Nevertheless, while food policy in conflict-affected contexts is increasingly important, NSAGs as governing agents and food policy stakeholders remain largely neglected, if not invisible, in much of this work.

Building on these insights, our analysis of NSAGs and food systems addresses these gaps in two specific ways: first, we actively apply a food systems lens to account for the multi-sited and complex nature of actors’ interactions with the food economy; and second, we specifically highlight the role of NSAGs as influential actors in food systems across comparative contexts.

NSAGs and governance

In moving beyond singular cases and seeking to understand the role of NSAGs in the food system more widely, research in the fields of rebel governance²¹ and criminal governance²² provide helpful frameworks for understanding the wider constellation of actions, interactions and policies that make up armed groups’ engagement with various socio-political and economic institutions shaping food systems in contexts of violence.

These growing areas of research have long challenged limiting understandings of NSAGs as merely disruptive actors²³ as well as prevalent representations of warzones as territories primarily defined by disorder and institutional breakdown.²⁴ Much of this scholarship has focused on the specific instance of rebel groups, providing rich empirical evidence of the diversity that exists in the scope, reach, aims, and mode of governance performed by various rebel groups in local contexts of armed conflict.²⁵ In particular, this body of work has primarily examined rebel involvement in domains of civilian life that are typically associated with state governance.²⁶ For example, research has detailed the role of NSAGs in developing political institutions²⁷; providing public goods and services, such as healthcare and education²⁸; administering justice²⁹; and regulating economic activities,³⁰including establishing taxation systems to generate revenues.³¹ An important aspect documented in these studies, which is relevant for our analysis, is that NSAGs do not necessarily need to develop complex, rule-based administrative and bureaucratic structures for instances of NSAG governance to develop and be recognised as such. Nor do they need to completely control all fields of civilian governance or a territory.³² Patterns of regulation and control may indeed be identified even in situations where rebel groups are only informally involved in a certain sphere of activity, nevertheless altering how it functions and how civilians interact with its operations.³³

Despite this recognised diversity of groups, functions, and structures, NSAG governance in relation to food and the wider food system receives scant attention. If mentioned at all, food typically features relatively briefly, in one of two ways. The first is in reference to the collection or otherwise taxation of food from among the population living in controlled territories to meet the needs of combatants.³⁴ While illuminating a key feature of the food economy, this discussion is typically limited to food’s extractive value for NSAGs’ survival, often at the point of production, overlooking other relevant interests and socio-economic dynamics that shape NSAGs’ interventions in other sites of the food system, both within and outside areas under their direct influence. A second instance in which food is discussed is as one of several features in illustrative lists of the kinds of basic services provided by non-state actors,³⁵ with only a few studies focusing on food distribution as a specific aspect of NSAG governance.³⁶

Moreover, to date, research on rebel and criminal governance, though empirically and conceptually interconnected, has proceeded largely on parallel tracks, treating non-state authorities engaged in political – as opposed to economic – functions, as conceptually distinct.³⁷ We concede that there are important differences in the strategies, organisational goals, and governing ambitions of a rebel group which holds and governs territory with limited-to-moderate challenge from a weak or largely absent state, such as AS, and violent criminal networks who co-exist with semi-functioning state authorities, such as urban armed groups in Haiti.³⁸ However, we follow scholars including Rodgers and Muggah³⁹ in contending that while there are important differences across (and indeed, within) groups, there are benefits to exploring their overlap and intersections.⁴⁰ Specifically, this binary obscures the dynamism by which groups might move between these categories, a phenomenon that has explicitly been documented in Haiti.⁴¹ Moreover, the distinction neglects the ways in which both (seemingly) economic and political motivations and rationales can co-exist simultaneously.⁴²

Consequently, in the analysis that follows, we aim to extend the literature on rebel governance in two directions: first, in expanding the range of governance functions which receive attention in the literature, in this case, specifically detailing food system regulation and oversight. Second, in contributing to bridging the conceptual domains of rebel and criminal governance.

Research design and methods

The study draws on primary, qualitative data collected through Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) in Somalia and Haiti, conducted between March and November 2022. The two countries formed part of a larger, multi-country project, and are isolated here for comparative analysis because they both exhibit the common characteristic of high levels of NSAG activity. Data collection was carried out in Bay, Gedo and Banaadir regions of Somalia, and Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The areas studied were selected out of a combination of presence of the humanitarian organisation with which the research team partnered (necessary to facilitate data collection), and the perception that conflict was disrupting food systems in each area. They were not specifically chosen because of an a priori assumption about the role/s of NSAGs within this disruption. While we contend that broad strategies and qualities of NSAG activity – particularly where documented across these diverse cases – can be found elsewhere, given the complexity of both conflict and food systems, more research is required to determine how generalisable the specific findings regarding tactics and group behaviours are, both within and beyond the countries in question.

KIIs were conducted by the research team remotely over Zoom, primarily with humanitarian and policy professionals working in the fields of food security, livelihoods, nutrition, displacement, and peacebuilding for the partner humanitarian organisation. Six KIIs took place with experts in South-Central Somalia; and nine KIIs took place with experts in Haiti.

Subsequently, the research team developed an FGD discussion guide based on the key themes emerging from KIIs. In Somalia, staff of the same operational humanitarian organisation led FGDs. In Haiti, these were jointly led by the same humanitarian organisation and a local research partner, Eric Calpas, a sociologist and independent researcher, based in Port-au-Prince. Participants for FGDs were purposefully sampled from among the communities in which the NGO operates, targeting diverse participants. Nine FGDs took place with participants in South-Central Somalia (Bay, Gedo, and Banaadir regions) and five FGDs took place in Cité Soleil. On average, 7–8 participants took part in each discussion. Groups were split by sex, with an equal number of male and female FGDs taking place, although as female groups were slightly larger on average, they constitute a higher share of the sample (just over 70 per cent) than male counterparts. To facilitate deeper discussion, groups were also organised among participants who shared similar characteristics in terms of their role within the food system (e.g. farmers, market traders, food transport workers) in both contexts, and displacement status (host and displaced) in Somalia (see Table 1). The transcripts of both KIIs and FGDs were subsequently analysed to identify common and divergent themes, patterns, and relationships.

Table 1. Summary of FGDs held by country, discussion group and sex.

Country	Group	Male	Female
Somalia	Agropastoralist groups	X	X
	Displaced groups	X	X
	Host community	X	X
	Farmers	X
	Self-help group		X
	Market traders	X
Haiti	Transporters/traders (Madan Sara)		X
	Market sellers		X
	Transporters	X
	Household heads		X
	Farmers	X

The research design, combining remote, virtual interviews with discussions led by partner staff had several advantages, while also introducing particular limitations. Virtual interviews allowed the research team to overcome access barriers in two contexts experiencing high levels of insecurity in which physical access was unreliable. Nevertheless, virtual platforms can introduce challenges including interrupted access and/or sound disrupting the flow of the discussion, and greater difficulty interpreting non-verbal communication.⁴³

Similarly, entrusting partner staff to lead FGDs ensured experts with knowledge of local language, context, and cultural sensitivities led discussions directly with participants. Discussions also benefited from a degree of trust and familiarity, as participants were recruited by staff of an organisation with an existing programming presence in the area and an established relationship with communities, and staff of the same organisation then either led or co-led the discussions. However, this approach is not without risks. Familiarity, even with high levels of trust, can inhibit participants’ willingness to discuss potentially stigmatised or taboo topics, in the interests of social desirability. However, we note that taboo topics were not a particular focus of the discussions, and given the group nature of the consultations, this may have been the case regardless. Discussion leaders emphasised to all participants that participation was not tied to any material or service advantage to individuals, nor would it directly result in changes in the services or materials provided in the communities in which the organisation worked. However, the involvement of staff from a humanitarian organisation may nevertheless have implicitly shaped the responses of participants. Most notably, there is a risk participants used the discussion to identify issues and/or potential response areas the organisation might address in its programming. Having taken care to advise participants that this was not the case, readers should nevertheless recall this when interpreting the following results.

Cases

South-Central Somalia

Violent conflict in South-Central Somalia is primarily related to the 15-year war between the Islamist militant group, Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, known as Al-Shabaab/AS (‘the youth’ in Arabic), and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). Military operations of the past decade have pushed AS out of the capital, Mogadishu, and main urban centres of South-Central Somalia, where the group previously had an expanded presence.⁴⁴ Notwithstanding territorial losses, the group has retained its capability to carry out complex attacks across the country from strongholds in rural areas of South-Central Somalia, with the town of Jilib in Middle Juba serving as its main base.

In zones under its control, AS has established complex administrative and military structures of regional and local governance relying on the cooperation and co-optation of clan elders since the early years of the insurgency.⁴⁵ These institutions regulate almost every aspect of civilian life and they include not only AS military forces (Jabahaat), its powerful intelligence unit (Aminiyaat), and the Shura – AS’ main governing council – but also a local police (Hisbah), a highly sophisticated taxation and justice system, and a network of regional and local governing bodies that ensure the implementation of rules and regulations across all AS territories.⁴⁶

This conflict has unfolded against the backdrop of a protracted humanitarian crisis heightened by the adverse effects of extreme climate events. Somalia is among the countries hardest hit by the severe drought that affected the Horn of Africa in 2020–2023. During this time, extremely high levels of food insecurity rose to reported famine-like conditions (IPC Phase 5), especially in the agro-pastoralist areas and IDP settlements of Baidoa in Bay region, and in Mogadishu.⁴⁷ In October 2023, prolonged drought came to an end with heavy rains and intense flooding, further aggravating food insecurity and the already dire humanitarian situation.⁴⁸

In a predominately rural society depending mostly on pastoralism and rain-fed agriculture, the combined impact of protracted armed conflict, climate shocks and stressors, and issues of resource management make livelihood systems increasingly precarious. Growing competition over access to fertile land and water for farming and livestock rearing often become flashpoints of inter-clan conflict and violence.⁴⁹ There is also an important relationship between food and power in rural areas that influences the sale of land, displacement, and other business dealings.⁵⁰ These impacts can be both chronic, for instance through a reluctance to invest in the area or provide essential services, or more acute, including the impact even minor clashes can have on access and travel to markets and on the price of inputs and food.

Haiti

Haiti has experienced a prolonged period of political instability following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.⁵¹ The current political vacuum has led to an unprecedented increase in gang violence in urban areas and to further deterioration of security, especially in the capital, Port-au-Prince.⁵²

In Haiti, gangs have a long-established presence and influence in urban centres. They have strong bases in marginalised, peri-urban neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince and close links with the country’s political and economic elites as well as the security forces.⁵³ Since 2021, their number has rapidly increased, and according to recent estimates, there are approximately 300 active gangs in Haiti.⁵⁴ Half of these operate in Port-au-Prince, where they control almost 80 per cent of the metropolitan area of the capital, including its main supply routes and critical infrastructures such as ports, store houses, and fuel terminals.⁵⁵ Between 2022 and 2023, gang activities expanded outside Port-au-Prince, especially in Artibonite, Haiti’s main agricultural region.⁵⁶

Haiti’s most prominent urban gangs pursue both political and economic interests.⁵⁷ Their activities include protecting and expanding their local support through territorial control and local political connections, particularly in electorally relevant areas.⁵⁸ Gangs are also involved in controlling the transit of supplies along Haiti’s transport routes alongside regulating market activities, the provision of public supplies, and transport services.⁵⁹ Through these activities, Haitian gangs not only reap substantial profits, but also exert almost total control over the functioning of crucial economic and governance sectors.⁶⁰

Gang violence in Haiti is primarily driven by turf wars between rival gangs, which increasingly operate through a complex system of strategic alliances and competing federations.⁶¹ The G-9 and GPÈP are Haiti’s most powerful groups. Most of the gangs of Port-au-Prince partner with one of these two networks, whose rivalry has defined the main front of gang violence in the capital for the last 2 years.⁶²

Amidst widespread armed conflict and violence, Haitians have faced the compounding effects of three subsequent years of economic contraction; the COVID-19 pandemic; recurring fuel crises; and a series of major environmental disasters that hit the southern regions of the country in 2021. At the time data were collected, just under 4.5 million people in Haiti were facing IPC Phase 3 level food insecurity (‘Crisis’) or above.⁶³ Threats to humanitarian programmes, such as the looting of food stocks, further divert much-needed food aid and reduce disaster preparedness.

Analysis

The analysis that follows is structured around the distinct stages of the food system, from production, to transport and distribution, to trade, and finally consumption. Distinguishing interventions in these different stages facilitates an analysis of the i) multi-sited and often co-occurring nature of NSAG interventions in both contexts; ii) highly organised and systematic nature of those interventions across system components; and iii) downstream and cascading effects of intervention at any given point in the food system for other components, the consequences of which are visible only from a systems perspective.

Pre-production and production

In both Somalia and Haiti, NSAGs are present in rural areas, where they are actively involved in the regulation of food production of local communities, though with substantial differences in terms of scope and practices.

For at least a decade, AS has been ruling large swathes of territory across South-Central Somalia, where the country’s most productive agricultural regions are located. Here, it has established structures of local governance, including a far-reaching and specialised taxation system through which the group also regulates farming, both at the pre-production and production level. At pre-production level, permission to cultivate and graze land or establish a farm is granted to local farmers and pastoralists upon payment of taxes, either in cash or in kind. The collection of taxes is structured around fixed rates and systematic records and is channelled through local AS officers and clan elders, with little or no margin left to farmers to escape it, unless they flee from AS territories to areas under government control.⁶⁴ As one interviewee summarised,

[…] large agriculturally fertile land is under the control of non-state armed groups, including Al-Shabaab. So, cultivating needs their permission in a way, they are collecting taxes in their areas. […] in the last few weeks, around 1,000 families arrived in a town from rural areas controlled by Al-Shabaab because they refused to allow them to cultivate during this Gu rainy season. Some have stayed behind – to stay with capital and that, but women and elderly and children have migrated to the town. That one is affecting the poorest land holders, and they cannot cultivate if they can’t get approval from ruling non-state armed groups […].⁶⁵

AS local governance is deeply entrenched in clan politics,⁶⁶ and clan elders can play a central role in negotiating with AS on the payment of taxes for their communities.⁶⁷ In some cases, permission to produce can be refused by AS in a move to affirm the group’s authority over clans that owe political allegiances to the government.

One factor here also depends on the top leaders of AS. What happens is, if in [REDACTED REGION] the top leaders are not from that region and they are from another region – it might be difficult to strike a negotiation with them, because of a different clan. When in the case there is a local person, who is also a leader of the group, it’s easier for them to do that.⁶⁸

These reflections highlight how permission to cultivate or graze is not granted on exclusively financial grounds, but can reflect a dynamic political calculus of alliance-formation, maintenance and support:

[…] there are a lot of other clan dynamics, they also play a part. A particular clan – if inclining more towards security forces, and if AS is controlling that area – then it’s highly unlikely they will be giving cultivating permission towards that clan or sub-clan […] security forces are not in a position to guarantee them that protection. It’s more taking revenge and opportunity for them […].⁶⁹

AS exercises equally firm control over production itself. Once permission is granted to cultivate or graze, farmers and pastoralists are expected to pay another set of levies for activities such as permission to harvest; accessing rivers, irrigation facilities and water wells; registering water well drilling rigs, as well as using farming equipment, such as tractors and other machines.⁷⁰ Once harvested, agricultural produce is taxed before being sent to market.⁷¹ As one interviewee described,

Due to the conflict and violence, farmers’ role and responsibility were taken away by armed groups and [farmers] were not allowed to cultivate their farm unless they request and pay cash to farm their farm or else [are] authorised to farm by the armed group leader with demand of something in return. And when the time of yield comes, they are forced to pay high taxes once again or else their farm will perish without harvesting.⁷²

According to prior research and evidence collected in our study in the region of Bay – one of Somalia’s breadbasket regions – agricultural products are taxed at a fixed rate based on the acres of food grown.⁷³ Where producers are unable to pay resulting taxes, respondents reported community members abandoning food system livelihoods altogether, or migrating from areas under armed group control, often to precarious livelihoods in urban or peri-urban centres.⁷⁴ In interpreting these responses, it is important to note that drivers of internal displacement and urban migration cannot be reduced to a single factor.⁷⁵ Moreover, we note that rural–urban links in Somalia are strong in a context of rapid and significant urbanisation.⁷⁶ As such, we do not suggest that taxation by NSAGs alone drives this complex phenomenon. However, given the emphasis placed on this by participants, it appears an important factor alongside wider political, security, environmental, social and economic considerations in rendering food system livelihoods less sustainable.

In Haiti, by contrast, gangs’ direct involvement in the early stages of the food system is a more recent development, linked to their rapid expansion to rural areas outside the capital. Historically, gang activities have been mostly concentrated in urban areas in and around the capital and along the main supply routes connecting cities to rural regions. However, from 2017 to 2018, interviewees reported gangs occupying lands and controlling irrigation systems in fertile agricultural regions north of Port-au-Prince.⁷⁷ Respondents recounted a combination of strategies employed by armed groups seeking to control productive territory, ranging from direct seizure to taxation on inputs:

[Artibonite] is known as the department for production of rice […] and other products that may have an impact on people’s lives in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country. In 2017, 2018, armed groups had possession of the land there, so they put out farmers – the farmers don’t have capability to produce. That has an impact on the rice production, and we have a peak in the rice importation.⁷⁸

For Croix-des-Bouquets, the impact is primary in the agriculture. The irrigation system has been destroyed by gangs, or those that were still in place require a tax to access the water. This has impacted the food production.⁷⁹

As in Somalia, armed group control over productive territory not only immediately impacts food production by increasing costs for producers, it also poses a longer-term threat to food security as producers abandon food systems livelihoods and/or flee locations of armed group control, with potentially far-reaching implications for system functioning.

When [armed groups] take possession, they take possession of this space. They also have the control over the irrigation – when there is no irrigation, when there is no land, [farmers] leave their land for other people. They don’t produce. Or when they produce, they can’t send their products to Port-au-Prince, because the armed groups attacked the trucks and take the products inside or kidnapped people. They don’t have the means, the will to produce something.⁸⁰

There are people who have been forced to leave the area because the level of tax is too high and the pressure on private landowners was too high that they decided not to invest in the land and many of them left the area.⁸¹

These coping mechanisms detailed in both Haiti and Somalia – either temporarily or permanently abandoning food system livelihoods – are among several examples of consequences of NSAG interventions in food systems that have downstream and cascading effects for functioning and sustainability elsewhere in the system, as highlighted in the following sections.

Transport and distribution

Transport and distribution activities have been relatively neglected in research on conflict and food systems,⁸² but our study highlighted the centrality of control and regulation of distribution networks to NSAGs’ engagement with food systems in both contexts.

In a direct link with the previously discussed impacts of armed groups on production, respondents in South-Central Somalia reported that heavy taxation at roadblocks established across the region by different armed groups, including AS, impacted the availability and accessibility of seeds and related inputs in areas dependent on the movement of these goods from major urban areas.⁸³ In another example of NSAG effects reverberating throughout the food system, other respondents highlighted the impact disrupted transport, and lower availability of agricultural inputs overall, has on the quality of seeds, reducing yield and diversity of future agricultural outputs.⁸⁴

These practices also affected the movement of food items from Mogadishu to rural areas:

Non-perishable food comes from Mogadishu and once we have insecurity in the area, businesspeople are not able to transport goods from Mogadishu by use of roads, for they are blocked or the businessmen/women are forced to pay high taxes than usual.⁸⁵

For those foods that are transported from major urban areas, the high cost of distribution is passed on in high food prices, making transport ‘Very expensive […] taking all the way back to the regions, the cost is very high. One kg in rice here is $2 in Mogadishu, it can reach $3–4 in Lower Shabelle’.⁸⁶ Several respondents highlighted the particular plight of double, and even triple taxation, with multiple groups claiming authority to tax and control the movement of goods, driving prices up even further still:

Those big cars that are transporting these supplies. They have to pay taxation, both to the government and also to the non-government groups and actors. They have to pay also as well. It reaches there and is very expensive.⁸⁷

The farmers have joined humanitarian programmes since they can’t pay double burden of taxation from the government and AS and this has disrupted their farming and displaced them.⁸⁸

As indicated in these accounts, roadblock taxation is a widespread practice in South-Central Somalia, which is performed by multiple actors beyond AS, most notably by local clan militia.⁸⁹ This establishes a network of overlapping and competing taxation systems, where the regime implemented by AS is reported to be the most effective and profitable.⁹⁰ In addition to resulting in multiple taxation, the regulation of transport by rival actors also affects the food system in other ways, including in fuelling tensions between food producers, transporters and armed groups. One respondent highlighted how this can lead to outbreaks of violence between food system stakeholders and armed groups, in a mutually reinforcing cycle that can further destabilise food system functioning:

When they are taking their food to market, maybe there are checkpoints controlled by the gunmen. Those gunmen may try to take or loot the farmers, and then the farmers go back to their area, they organise themselves, and there will be fighting between these two actors – the checkpoint and the farmers themselves.⁹¹

Given Haiti’s relative size and comparably short distances for food transportation and distribution, it is somewhat surprising that challenges associated with the movement of food items and food system stakeholders were just as, if not more, acute in Haiti as in Somalia, where distances travelled were typically far greater. Haitian respondents highlighted many similar features of roadblocks and transport taxation, including taxation by multiple groups active along the same transport route,⁹² and the knock-on effects of high taxes:

Businesses have to pay armed groups to have access to food products as well, but they also realise – they [the armed groups] have the power to stop an entire city for a few months and prices will definitely go up.⁹³

As documented in relation to production, respondents identified consequences of these challenges not only in the immediate availability and accessibility of food, but also in long-term, large-scale movement out of food system livelihoods.⁹⁴ Other respondents reported significant scaling back of food system livelihood activities such as reducing the number of trips transport workers made per week between the capital and peri-urban areas⁹⁵; and travelling with smaller loads to reduce the risk of being targeted by armed groups to begin with, paying high taxes on larger loads, and/or suffering large losses if goods are looted.⁹⁶ Describing their work transporting Madan Saras, female entrepreneurs who serve as interlocutors between rural and peri-urban producers and urban markets,⁹⁷ one respondent recounted the cascading effects of these scale-backs as follows:

I continue to transport Madan Saras, but I have a decrease in my clientele and my customers also have a decrease in the quantity of products. Producers produce less because since the closure of the road, [therefore] there has been a decrease in demand.⁹⁸

Trade and exchange

Trade is a vital component of local food systems in both contexts, playing an important role in connecting rural and urban livelihoods. In both Haiti and Somalia, food markets of different sizes are profitable sites of the food value chain. NSAGs have an established presence in markets along with other food system stakeholders, regulating activities through taxation and oversight.

In the case of AS, it is important to note that territorial control by the group is not an essential precondition for engaging with food trade and exchange, unlike earlier stages of the food system examined above. Trading and market activities, especially in urban centres, are an important component of the group’s tax revenue system and they are highly regulated through AS operatives active across the country.⁹⁹ Through its highly structured finance office, AS routinely collects monthly and annual taxes from traders and businesses, also in government-controlled areas and lucrative markets in the capital Mogadishu.¹⁰⁰ In territories under government control, AS taxes on market activities add to both the formal and informal levies already imposed on traders and merchants by the Somali state, local authorities, and competing armed groups, significantly impacting on the sustainability of food trading businesses, especially the food retail sector, which is primarily composed of informal, small-size family businesses.¹⁰¹ The pervasiveness of AS involvement in trading activities in urban centres outside their territories is well described by the accounts of two interviewees below:

Although the taxation is not allowed by the government, it is the reality of the things […]. If I can give an example - sometime back, one of the markets here was closed. Why? Because the market traders were paying a huge amount of money in form of taxation both to the government and non-government actors, and therefore they were feeling that they were not earning anything because every coin they are earning, you are paying to them. You do not have the motivation to go back to market. […] the biggest markets [are] in urban areas. This is where the non-state actors strive more because they know they are able to get more informal taxation.¹⁰²

[…] two months ago, there is a main wholesale market in the capital, Mogadishu, which is the economic hub for the entire country, that’s where the trading happens. That place was closed – officially they’re paying tax to government, and unofficially to Al-Shabaab for many years now, and now third faction from ISIS demanding tax, so traders went off and market was closed for 2–3 days. So, then they reached a negotiation – they will not get taxed in more than one authority.¹⁰³

In Haiti, instead, our research indicates that armed groups’ interactions with key trade actors are mostly localised and closely interconnected with dynamics of inter-gang rivalries for territorial control, particularly at the neighbourhood level in Port-au-Prince.¹⁰⁴ The capital’s main markets have long been particularly contested between rival urban gangs for their high revenues. While the taxation of urban trading and market activities by NSAGs has been a common practice for years,¹⁰⁵ respondents report that it has become more frequent and costly following the surge in inter-gang violence and competition in 2018.¹⁰⁶ In particular, a group of Madan Saras and farmers selling agricultural products in the market of Croix-des-Bossales – one of the main economic centres of Port-au-Prince involved in a recent violent fight between rival gangs¹⁰⁷ – explained that:

[t]here is no fixed amount, ‘they’ [the armed men] judge the value of your goods on sight and claim an amount from you. This can range from 50 Gourdes (small dealers) to 100 Gourdes for black beans, fruits, vegetable products are less taxed. But the problem is that they don’t just tax you once a day they can spend up to 10 times a day. Everyone is taxed, they tax to land the goods, the carriers, the porters.¹⁰⁸

The increased taxation of merchants and sellers in Port-au-Prince is perceived to be gangs’ response to the sharp decline in market activities and revenues in the current context of protracted armed violence.¹⁰⁹ For example, one interviewee reported that:

Market activity has decreased, gangs can’t do as much taxing, this causes them to do more criminal activities. This is the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. Before 2018, the gang was making millions of goods monthly. In one day, they could make 2–3 million of goods in the market. But because of the violence, you have fewer trucks coming to the region to unload agricultural production and Madan Saras, there is less activity at the market.¹¹⁰

It is important to note that even where an armed group’s control is relatively limited to primary urban markets, the interventions described above have downstream effects on the functioning of local secondary and tertiary markets as well, and on integrated market functioning as a whole. As one interviewee outlined:

In the context of Haiti, where you’ve got very localised markets – those are very important to people living in those neighbourhoods […] – a lot of the purchase is taking place locally […] The challenge is because vendors are buying from wholesalers – their supply chain is hampered because they don’t have access to bigger markets or wholesalers outside their area.¹¹¹

These dynamics point to the centrality of food trade and exchange in urban and peri-urban areas for the overall economy of NSAGs, as also shown in Somalia. In both contexts, food system actors, from farmers to small-size informal sellers and local consumers, rely on access to markets for either income, household consumption, or both.¹¹² Participants have highlighted the degree to which the systematic interactions of NSAGs at this critical stage of the food system have far-reaching ramifications that are gradually transforming rural–urban economic relations in both countries:

Merchants have low profit margins as they purchase expensive foods and can’t put a lot of profits on the consumers, who have faced serious inflation and with low parity to purchase food stuffs. […] some have changed their food related business and venture into other business, while some migrated and change their business locations.¹¹³

As the conflict and the AS continues its hold of the two regions and transport and delivery challenges continue, the supply in the market decreases and thus the market sellers’ capacity and many of them continue getting bankrupt and out of the business. Those who are still in business, they keep on borrowing and borrowing because of the relationship they have built with the farmers.¹¹⁴

There is a significant decrease in the number of Madan Sara. Several women have abandoned this activity not only because of the risks but also because of the decline in sales.¹¹⁵

When there’s no production, they have no work […] No production, no income. No access to market, no income. No big sales, no income. So, they leave to work in another part […] people who leave their land, leave their region, if they don’t have the capability to go to the Dominican Republic they are obliged to move to Port-au-Prince and to start and invest in other activities […].¹¹⁶

Consumption

While NSAGs in neither Somalia and Haiti explicitly regulate household consumption practices, they are indirectly implicated in profound changes in consumption patterns through self-regulatory practices adopted at household and community level to cope with the fallout of NSAGs engagement in the preceding stages of the food system. Though changed patterns of food consumption are usually analysed as negative effects of conflict dynamics on the food security needs of local communities, our research suggests that they are a rather indicative aspect of NSAG-civilian relations and specifically, how civilians’ behaviour is shaped by the extensive involvement of NSAGs in the food system.

The reduced availability and accessibility of agricultural produce at food markets due to the disruptions to production, transport and market activities described above lead households to substantially reconfigure household purchasing and diet. Dominant patterns emerging from participants’ accounts point to a general reduction in both the quantity and quality of food consumed, with fresh fruits and vegetable consumption reported as particularly affected.¹¹⁷ While NSAG taxation and the consequent higher prices of foods drive much of the need to consume less, and generally lower quality, food, other non-financial aspects of NSAG activity also contribute to the adoption of these coping strategies. For example, numerous respondents recounted experiences of fresh food spoiling when transport was delayed or blocked entirely due to roadblocks,¹¹⁸ while disrupted access to central, primary and smaller, local markets meant both the volume and diversity of goods available locally suffered.¹¹⁹

As would be expected, the reduction of food intake was reported to have a significant impact on the food consumption of particularly vulnerable groups:

Because of the situation, traders cannot renew their stocks, so the prices of products have increased a lot. As a result, we are forced to spend less by reducing both the quality of what we consume and the quantity […] Children and adults eat poorly, the quantities have decreased on the plate but also eat on average 1 time a day. Sometimes we go more than a day without eating.¹²⁰

For the displaced communities, they are affected by the inflation and have no money to purchase food and sometimes they take days to get access to food and due to their purchasing parity, they get few foods and getting a balanced diet is a challenge to them and child sometimes become malnourished.¹²¹

Taken together, the analysis above highlights how in both contexts, NSAGs are active in every stage of the food system. This wide-ranging activity is multi-sited and often co-occurring. This is significant because the impacts of NSAG activities go far beyond production alone, which has historically been the primary focus of food security research. Moreover, this extensive engagement, and the level of organisation it reflects, highlights the systematic nature of these activities, as distinct to opportunistic or sporadic interventions. Finally, many interventions at any given point in the food system have downstream and sometimes cascading effects elsewhere in the network of interactions and actors that make up this complex environment, the features and implications of which are clear only when viewed through a food system lens.

Discussion and conclusion

From the analysis above, we arrive at three conclusions. First, that NSAGs in Haiti and South-Central Somalia are active at every stage of each the food system. This engagement commences at pre-production stage, with extensive evidence of NSAGs controlling, regulating and granting/declining permission to food producers to plant or graze livestock. It extends through a relatively neglected stage of the food system – the transport and distribution networks – and continues through trade and exchange, ultimately shaping household food access. NSAG engagement at each stage of the food system contributes to reduced availability and accessibility of food items – either through disincentives to produce, transport and/or trade food, or through cumulative rising costs being passed on to stakeholders at the next food system stage.

Moreover, these interactions have medium- to longer-term effects that go beyond immediate supply and access distortions, exacerbating the vulnerabilities of already fragile livelihood systems. Specifically, respondents in both contexts and across each stage of the food system reported systematic disincentives for food systems stakeholders to remain engaged in food systems livelihoods. In some instances, this resulted in wholesale flight from areas controlled by armed groups, with (forced) migration to larger urban areas being the most common consequence in Somalia, and movement within urban areas in Haiti being more frequently reported. In other cases, the consequence of these disincentives was a significant scale-back of food systems activities in favour of other livelihoods, and/or full departure from food system livelihoods altogether. These movements, if occurring on a large-scale, are likely to have system-wide impacts on food system functioning and sustainability, particularly where valuable skills, knowledge, and assets are lost in the process. Another key point to emphasise is that, in both countries, marginalised and vulnerable communities are likely to be disproportionately impacted by the short and long-term impacts of NSAGs activities across the food system As documented in the context of Somalia, marginalised rural communities (e.g. Digil, Mirifle, Bantu) experiencing deep-rooted patterns of socio-economic exclusion and discrimination are particularly at risk of conflict-induced displacement, especially to urban areas.¹²²

A second finding is that activity by NSAGs goes beyond opportunistic or sporadic engagements and is often systematic and highly organised. Contrary to explanations that suggest that NSAGs engage with food resources and specific aspects of the food system (e.g. land, agricultural output, and transportation) merely for extractive purposes, our study shows that this is not the case, even in contexts such as Haiti, where the comparatively less structured patterns of intervention of armed groups along the food value chain may at first appear predominantly predatory and disruptive. The evidence collected in our research points to an extended involvement of NSAGs in a wide range of practices that not only interfere with, but actually regulate and control the day-to-day operation of key processes and infrastructures of the food system in both countries, with ramifications extending well beyond NSAG-held territories.

While foregrounding the centrality of the food economy in the non-military activities performed by NSAGs, the results of our study clearly identify the role played by NSAGs as key actors and stakeholders operating along with other state and non-state actors in the critical domain of food (security) governance in conflict settings. If, on the one hand, food system activities supply NSAGs with significant revenue streams, on the other hand, the in-depth accounts shared by food system experts and actors in both countries provide important insights into how the systematic interactions of NSAGs with different stages of the food system also address other relevant governance functions that are not solely driven by economic interests. In particular, our findings indicate that in both conflict environments, food system represent a crucial field of NSAG-civilian relations through which NSAGs negotiate their legitimacy and authority as well as wield forms of territorial and population control, regardless of the level of sophistication of their regulatory practices and structures.

Finally, we conclude that NSAG engagement in food systems across Haiti and South-Central Somalia shares several commonalities despite the very different typologies of NSAGs, contexts, and operational arrangements involved. In particular, we observe that despite being active across all stages of the food value chain, transportation and trading to and in urban areas are key points of systematic intervention of armed groups in the food system of both countries. The high revenue generated at these specific stages through systematic and extensive taxation practices on transit, access, and exchange make critical infrastructure and urban economic hubs linked to the food value chain sites of significant importance for the overall economy and governance frameworks of both urban armed groups in Haiti and the rural-based insurgent group of AS in South-Central Somalia. While recent studies have drawn attention to the logistical and financial power exerted by diverse NSAGs through checkpoint taxation in current armed conflicts and the role of urban environments in the economic and political activities of NSAGs,¹²³ our study sheds light on the pervasiveness and specific implications of such dynamics in the food supply chains of both countries. The ability of both highly structured and relatively less organised NSAGs to play a prominent role in high-value sites of the food economy is rather indicative of the structural influence exercised by NSAGs in the overall regulation of food systems in contexts of protracted armed violence, across the rural–urban divide.

With these findings, we aim to make several contributions to the study of food systems, conflict and NSAGs more specifically. The first of these is to contribute to advancing research on conflict and hunger, by highlighting precise mechanisms by which violent actors disrupt and shape food systems. While extensive research documents the food security outcomes of violent conflict, our study aims to contribute to isolating specific pathways through which conflict’s impacts on food access and availability are transmitted by specific actors. The second contribution relates to research on rebel and criminal governance, where we aim to highlight a heretofore relatively neglected domain of armed actor oversight and regulation – food systems. Relatedly, we build on case study research on crises and conflict by undertaking comparative analysis that contributes to a growing body of work that challenges the rebel-criminal governance binary. Our third contribution is in the domain of food system scholarship, which can also benefit from greater integration of a relatively under-studied food system stakeholder, the NSAG, as efforts advance to think above, below, and beyond the state in identifying food system actors.

Beyond scholarly contributions, our findings also have implications for humanitarian, development and peace practitioners and policymakers. On a systematic level, where siloed approaches to food security and livelihoods programming continue to predominate, a systems approach that extensively maps and identifies opportunities for intervention across the food system more holistically should be adopted. Within this, attention to the positions, interests, and influence of actors beyond state agents or recognised commercial actors, including armed groups’ roles in regulating and shaping the food system, is essential not only to frame actions that are more aligned with the ground realities of the operational environment of food systems in conflict settings, but also to better understand the power dynamics that shape food availability and access, especially in areas under NSAG control. Operationally, food security programming that accounts for NSAGs’ extensive role and reach in these food systems might include enhancing access to nutritious food items in secondary and tertiary markets, where transport and distribution networks, and prohibitive taxation, limit travel and access to food in central primary markets. Engaging protection specialists in both programming and advocacy to explore strategies to enhance the security of vulnerable food system stakeholders such as transporters and small traders, may also be fruitful.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by Irish Aid. The ideas, opinions and comments in this document are entirely the responsibility of its author(s) and do not necessarily represent or reflect Irish Aid policy.

Notes on contributors

Denise Ripamonti

Denise Ripamonti is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction (IICRR), School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. Her research work focuses on dynamics of armed conflicts and political violence; state and armed groups relations, and the interactions between law, armed conflict, and society. In 2022, she was research assistant in the Conflict and Food Systems – CFS project, on which this article is based.

Caitriona Dowd

Caitriona Dowd is an assistant professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, where her work focuses on conflict monitoring, humanitarian crises and food insecurity.

Ronak Patel

Ronak Patel is an emergency medicine physician and public health researcher focused on vulnerable urban populations and building resilience.

Kelsey Gleason

Kelsey Gleason is an assistant professor and environmental epidemiologist at the University of Vermont, who studies the intersection of global health and the environment.

Samuel S. Polzin

Samuel S. Polzin is a social scientist with a Master of Science from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who has conducted research across the agri-food, humanitarian-development, and transportation sectors. He focuses on systems research and behavioral science, with particular specialization in mixed methods and survey design, and has research interests in human security, socio-ecological systems, and sustainable development.

Notes

1. FSIN, ‘Global Report on Food Crises 2023’.

2. Brück et al., ‘The Relationship between Food Security and Violent Conflict’; Martin-Shields and Stojetz, ‘Food Security and Conflict’; Brück and d’Errico, ‘Food Security and Violent Conflict’; Shemyakina, ‘War, Conflict, and Food Insecurity’.

3. IISS, Armed Conflict Survey 2023; Bamber-Zyrd, ‘ICRC Engagement with Armed Groups in 2023’.

4. FSIN, ‘2020 Global Report on Food Crises’; ‘2021 Global Report on Food Crises’; ‘2023 Global Report on Food Crises’.

5. de Waal, Mass Starvation.

6. Martin-Shields and Stojetz, ‘Food Security and Conflict’.

7. For further discussion of this gap, see Hänke et al., ‘Food System Transformation in Fragile Contexts’.

8. Delgado et al., ‘Food Systems in Conflict and Peacebuilding Settings’.

9. See Maitre d’Hôtel et al., ‘Resilience of Food System Actors’; Townsend et al., ‘Future of Food’; Babu et al., ‘Nutrition-Sensitive Food Systems’.

10. Koren and Bagozzi, ‘Living off the Land’; Koren, ‘Food Resources and Strategic Conflict’.

11. Weinberg and Bakker, ‘Let them Eat Cake’; Abbs, ‘The Hunger Games’.

12. Dowd, ‘Starvation, Conflict and Data’.

13. Maxwell et al., ‘The 2011–12 Famine in Somalia’.

14. Kimani-Murage et al., ‘Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in Urban Slums’.

15. Rasul et al., ‘Extreme Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in Haiti’.

16. Dowd, ‘Food-related Violence, Hunger and Humanitarian Crises’; Fiandrino et al., ‘Impact of Food-related Conflicts’.

17. Ford Runge and Graham, ‘Hunger as a Weapon of War’.

18. See Jaafar and Woertz, ‘Agriculture as a Funding Source for ISIS’.

19. Maxwell et al., ‘The 2011–12 Famine in Somalia’; Maxwell et al., ‘The Somalia Famine of 2011–12’.

20. Maxwell and Slater, ‘Food Policy Old and New’; Pinstrup-Andersen and Watson, Food Policy for Developing Countries; Hospes and Brons, ‘Food System Governance’.

21. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers; Arjona et al., Rebel Governance in Civil War; Duyvesteyn et al., ‘Reconsidering Rebel Governance’; Cunningham and Loyle, ‘Dynamic Processes of Rebel Governance’; Loyle et al., ‘Revolt and Rule’.

22. Abello-Colak and Guarneros-Meza, ‘The Role of Criminal Actors’; Barnes, ‘Criminal Politics’; Lessing, ‘Conceptualizing Criminal Governance’.

23. Duyvesteyn et al., ‘Reconsidering Rebel Governance’.

24. Duyvesteyn et al., ‘Reconsidering Rebel Governance’; Justino, ‘Wartime Governance and State-Building’.

25. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers; Arjona et al., Rebel Governance in Civil War;

26. Loyle et al., ‘New Directions in Rebel Governance Research’.

27. See, for example, Mampilly and Stewart, ‘A Typology of Rebel Political Institutional Arrangements’; Breslawski, ‘The Social Terrain of Rebel Held Territory’.

28. See, among many others, Sjöberg and Balci, ‘In Their Shoes’; Furlan, ‘Rebel Governance at the Time of Covid-19’; Breslawski, ‘Armed Groups and Public Health Emergencies’; Berti, ‘Non-State Actors as Providers of Governance’; Donker, ‘Jihadism & Governance in North-Syria’; Stokke, ‘Building the Tamil Eelam State’; Gutiérrez, ‘Rebel Governance as State-Building?’

29. See, for example, Loyle, ‘Rebel Justice During Armed Conflict’; Termeer, ‘Rebel Legal Order, Governance and Legitimacy’; Giustozzi and Baczko, ‘The Politics of the Taliban’s Shadow Judiciary’.

30. See, for example, Kubota, ‘The Rebel Economy in Civil War’; Ibáñez et al., ‘The Long-Term Economic Legacies of Rebel Rule in Civil War’; Ahram, ‘Rebel Oil Regimes and Economic Governance’; Hansen-Lewis and Shapiro, ‘Understanding the Daesh Economy’; Reno, ‘Predatory Rebellions and Governance’.

31. Amiri and Jackson, ‘Taliban Taxation in Afghanistan’; Bandula-Irwin et al., ‘Beyond Greed’; Revkin, ‘What Explains Taxation by Resource-Rich Rebels?’; Breslawski and Tucker, ‘Ideological Motives and Taxation by Armed Groups’; Sabates-Wheeler and Verwimp, ‘Extortion with Protection’.

32. Kasfir, ‘Rebel Governance’; Loyle et al., ‘Revolt and Rule’; ‘New Directions in Rebel Governance Research’.

33. Kasfir, ‘Rebel Governance’.

34. Arjona et al., Rebel Governance in Civil War; Justino, ‘Wartime Governance and State-Building’; Kasfir, ‘Rebel Governance’; Weinstein, Inside Rebellion.

35. Mampilly, Rebel Rulers; Furlan, ‘Understanding Governance’.

36. See Martínez and Eng, ‘Struggling to Perform the State’.

37. Lessing, ‘Conceptualizing Criminal Governance’.

38. Schubert, ‘To Engage or Not to Engage Haiti’s Urban Armed Groups?’ See Kalmanovitz, ‘Can Criminal Organizations Be Non-state Parties to Armed Conflict?’ on key dimensions for differentiation.

39. Rodgers and Muggah, ‘Gangs as Non-state Armed Groups’.

40. Kalyvas, ‘How Civil Wars Help Explain Organized Crime’; Barnes, ‘Criminal Politics’.

41. Schuberth, ‘A Transformation from Political to Criminal Violence?’.

42. Sanín, ‘Criminal Rebels?’; Daniel, ‘Criminal Governance and Insurgency’.

43. Archibald et al., ‘Using Zoom Videoconferencing for Qualitative Data Collection’.

44. Bacon and Muibu, ‘The Domestication of Al-Shabaab’.

45. Skjelderup, ‘Jihadi Governance and Traditional Authority Structures’.

46. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘Al-Shabaab’s Military Machine’; ‘A Losing Game’; Skjelderup, ‘Jihadi Governance and Traditional Authority Structures’.

47. IPC Partners, ‘Somalia: IPC Acute Food Insecurity and Acute Malnutrition Analysis’.

48. UNOCHA, ‘Somalia: 2023 Deyr Season Floods Situation Report’.

49. UNOCHA, ‘Somalia Humanitarian Needs Overview 2023’; UN Somalia, ‘Common Country Analysis 2020’.

50. Majid and Jaspars, ‘Talking Food and Power in Somalia’.

51. ICG, ‘Haiti: A Path to Stability for a Nation in Shock’; Johnston and François, ‘Haiti News Roundup’; Mines, ‘Have Haitians Finally Found the Formula for Moving Forward?’.

52. Abi-Habib and Paultre, ‘Gangs Advance on the Seat of Haitian Government Power’. The New York Times, 30 July 2022.

53. Olivier, ‘The Political Anatomy of Haiti’s Armed Gangs’; Da Rin, ‘New Gang Battle Lines Scar Haiti’; ICG, ‘Haiti’s Last Resort’.

54. UNOCHA, ‘Haiti Humanitarian Response Plan at a Glance 2023’.

55. Ibid.

56. UN Human Rights Office and BINUH, ‘Criminal Violence Extends Beyond Port-au-Prince’.

57. ICG, ‘Haiti: A Path to Stability for a Nation in Shock’; Insecurity Insight, ‘Haiti: Situation Report’.

58. IHRC and OHCCH, ‘Killing with Impunity’.

59. RNDDH, ‘Situation Chaotique des Droits Humains en Haïti’; ‘Systematic Violation of Human Rights in Haiti’; Saffon and Asmann, ‘GameChangers 2021’.

60. den Held and Dalby, ‘Truce or No Truce’; Insecurity Insight, ‘Haiti: Situation Report’; Olivier, ‘The Political Anatomy of Haiti’s Armed Gangs’; Wilson, ‘Fuel, Water, International Aid’; Wyss, ‘Gangs Now Run Haiti’. Bloomberg, 2 September 2021; Saffon, ‘How a Haiti Suburb Fuelled the Rise of a Formidable Street Gang’.

61. Ford, ‘Why Haiti’s Gang War Keeps on Getting Worse’.

62. Ibid.

63. IPC Partners, ‘Haiti: Acute Food Insecurity Projection Update’.

64. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘Al-Shabaab’s Military Machine’; ‘A Losing Game’.

65. Somalia, Interview 104.

66. Skjelderup, ‘Jihadi Governance and Traditional Authority Structures’.

67. Mubarak and Jackson, ‘Playing the Long Game’.

68. Somalia, Interview 103.

69. Somalia, Interview 104.

70. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘A Losing Game’.

71. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘A Losing Game’; Somalia FGD 1002.

72. Somalia, FGD 1002.

73. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘A Losing Game’; Somalia, FGD 1003.

74. Somalia, FGD 1005.

75. Osman and Abebe, ‘Rural Displacement and its Implications on Livelihoods and Food Insecurity’.

76. UN Habitat, ‘Somalia Programme’; Bakonyi, Chonka and Stuvøy, ‘War and City-Making in Somalia’.

77. See also UN Human Rights Office and BINUH, ‘Criminal Violence Extends Beyond Port-au-Prince’.

78. Haiti, Interview 206.

79. Haiti, Interview 209.

80. Haiti, Interview 206.

81. Haiti, Interview 209.

82. Dowd et al., ‘Conflict’s Impacts on Food Systems’; Maitre d’Hôtel et al., ‘Resilience of Food System Actors’.

83. Somalia, FGD 1001.

84. Somalia, FGD 1007.

85. Somalia, FGD 1002.

86. Somalia, Interview 103.

87. Ibid.

88. Somalia, FGD 1006.

89. Ali, ‘Brokering Trade Routes’; Bahadur, ‘Terror and Taxes’; Mohammed, ‘Navigating Trade Controls’; Schouten, ‘Paying the Price’.

90. Ibid.

91. Somalia, Interview 101.

92. Haiti, FGD 2003.

93. Haiti, Interview 205.

94. Haiti, FGD 2003.

95. Haiti, FGD 2001.

96. Haiti, FGD 2002, 2005.

97. Hossein, ‘Black Women in the Marketplace’.

98. Haiti, FGD 2003.

99. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘A Losing Game’.

100. Hiraal Institute, ‘The AS Finance System’; ‘A Losing Game’.

101. FAO, ‘Food Systems Profile – Somalia’.

102. Somalia, Interview 102.

103. Somalia, Interview 104.

104. Haiti, FGD 2002; Interview 202.

105. Haiti, Interview 209.

106. Haiti, FGD 2001.

107. RNDDH, ‘The Events in La Saline’.

108. Haiti, FGD 2001.

109. Ibid.

110. Haiti, Interview 209.

111. Haiti, Interview 201.

112. FEWS NET, ‘Haiti: Staple Food Market Fundamentals’; FAO, ‘Food Systems Profile – Somalia’.

113. Somalia, FGD 1005.

114. Somalia, FGD 1009.

115. Haiti, FGD 2001.

116. Haiti, Interview 206.

117. Haiti, FGD 2002, 2007.

118. Somalia, FGD 1007, 1009; Haiti, FGD 2001.

119. Haiti, FGD 2002.

120. Haiti, FGD 2004.

121. Somalia, FGD 1004.

122. UN Somalia, ‘Common Country Analysis 2020’; UNOCHA, ‘Somalia Humanitarian Needs Overview 2023’; UNHCR and NRC, ‘Living in Fear’; Hailey et al., ‘Somali Capacities to Respond to Crisis Are Changing’; Eno, ‘Expanding Justice’.

123. See Schouten, ‘The Global Checkpoint Economy’ and Roadblock Politics; Sampaio, ‘Urban Resources’.