Policies to Reduce High-Risk Coping Mechanisms: Evidence from Mali

How households respond to systemic shocks—food price volatility, seasonal fluctuations in agricultural production, conflict, pandemics, and extreme weather events—can play an important role in long-term food security, economic stability, and resilience at both the household and the societal level. A new project paper from the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration finds that in Mali, the coping mechanisms households resort to in the face of such shocks are often high-risk and reactionary.

While such mechanisms can provide temporary relief from the immediate impacts of a shock, they can also worsen households’ food security, poverty, and vulnerability outcomes in the long run.

Broader policies focused on long-term outcomes have the potential to help households and societies better cope with shocks in the short term while still protecting long-term food security and economic resilience. However, to develop and implement such policies, policymakers need a better understanding of how households respond when faced with multiple and simultaneous shocks, as well as how existing coping mechanisms impact long-term food security outcomes.

The project paper provides a framework that examines this relationship between multi-variate shocks, coping mechanisms, and food security. The model first examines four types of systemic shock: price shocks, seasonal performance shocks, conflict shocks, and climate shocks. It then goes on to estimate the impact of common high-risk coping mechanisms in Mali on outcomes including the Food Consumption Score (FCS), the Household Hunger Scale (HHS), and the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS).

The analyzed coping mechanisms include:

• selling domestic assets,
• using savings,
• reducing essential non-food expenditures (e.g., schooling and healthcare),
• sending household members to eat elsewhere,
• borrowing cash,
• borrowing food,
• selling productive assets, including female animals,
• begging, and
• engaging in illegal activities.

Such reactionary coping mechanisms may alleviate immediate food security concerns; however, the paper finds that they have negative consequences in the long term for households’ food consumption, dietary diversity, income-generating ability, social relationships, and overall resilience.

The alternative, the paper’s authors suggest, is the development of policies that prioritize social protection, financial inclusion, and economic stability, particularly for vulnerable populations.

Effective policies include:

• conditional cash transfer programs tying financial aid to utilization of education and healthcare,
• subsidization of school fees and free school meals,
• universal health coverage programs,
• expansion of microfinance services and community savings programs to increase access to credit and financing,
• strengthened property rights, and
• government-backed emergency loan programs.

In addition, governments, international organizations, and private sector actors should invest in vocational training and skill development programs to help households access a wider range of employment opportunities. Policymakers can also develop public works programs to provide temporary livelihood opportunities during times of crisis. These efforts can allow for more stable sources of income in the face of a shock. Investments in climate-resilient agricultural techniques is also critical to help agricultural populations better withstand the climate shocks.

By designing comprehensive policies that incorporate and enhance financial access, social safety nets, and economic resilience, policymakers can reduce households’ reliance on high-risk coping mechanisms that only cause more damage in the long run. Such policy responses can enhance the population’s overall food security and economic resilience to shocks and drive long-term societal growth and development.

Sara Gustafson is a freelance communications consultant.