Livelihoods and migration
Do conflicts create poverty traps?: asset losses and recovery for displaced households in Colombia
Does conflict create poverty?
Authors:
A.M. Ibáñez; A. Moya
Publisher:
Microcon, 2009
Determining assets as key indicators of household welfare, the authors of this paper seek to analyse how asset losses occur during internal conflicts and the process of asset accumulation following conflict. To conduct such research they focused on an especially vulnerable group of victims of conflict - the displaced population in Colombia.
Civilians are particularly vulnerable in intrastate conflict. Many communities are viewed as a ‘resource’ to be appropriated – whether it be land; physical assets or valuable resources. Such ‘disruption’ may be difficult for households to recover from. Not only could key physical assets be essential to livelihoods but the loss of ‘assets’ such as the death of family members; the destruction of socio-economic networks; and the collapse of local financial markets could see communities thrust into chronic poverty. Does conflict, therefore, create ‘poverty traps’?
The research found that:
- the displaced population faces enormous obstacles to entering urban labour markets given their restricted capacity to compete, and the fact that labour markets in urban areas are often tight. Consequently, recovering or accumulating new assets is a rare event - only 25 per cent of households are able to recover assets
- regardless of the extent of asset loss caused by forced migration, all displaced households are left with an asset base seemingly insufficient to escape poverty i.e. a lack of assets, restricted access to financial markets, and soaring unemployment
- income generating programmes help to spur asset recovery and accumulation. By connecting households to better quality jobs and providing seed capital for implementing productive activities, income generating programmes expand earnings, which then are allotted to cover subsistence needs as well as accumulate assets
- these programmes are not effective in increasing consumption, and thus preventing households from having to resort to costly strategies in order to smooth consumption.
