In July 2025, GDHP researchers based at UCD, Seán Gurrin, Joanna Pedrina and Caitriona Dowd, published their study on role of food in peace agreements in the Journal of Peacebuilding & Development. The study is motivated by the fact that while food security is closely tied to conflict, to date, food security’s inclusion in peace agreementshas been relatively understudied. It addresses this gap, by first mapping the presence of food security-related provisions in contemporary peace agreements, and second, testing the effect of their inclusion on subsequent peace process progress and durability of peace. Analyzing peace agreements from the PA-X dataset, the authors find that food-related references are relatively rare, and often brief. However, when examining their inclusion in agreements in food-insecure environments, the authors find strong evidence that they are positively associated with progress in peace processes, and more qualified evidence that they are associated with a lower likelihood of subsequent violence. 

The published study is available open access on the Journal of Peacebuilding & Development's website, and is based on an earlier working paper published on the GDHP project site. 

On 5 March 2025, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation GDHP team and the Irish Embassy in South Africa convened a policy roundtable to discuss how policy implementation can be strengthened to bring gender, food security, and GBV into the center of agricultural policy reform. The roundtable brought together key stakeholders, including the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, the Irish Ambassador to South Africa, government representatives, media, civil society organizations, the Embassy of Italy, and academic researchers. Discussions examined the inadequacies of South Africa’s legislative framework, the exploitative nature of commercial agriculture, and the urgent need for gender-responsive policies, derived from the project's recent study: A Promise not Fulfilled: GBV in South Africa’s Agricultural System. Read more...

The Gender Dimensions of Hunger in Peacebuilding (GDHP) research team convened in Dublin, Ireland in June 2024 to share the results from the ongoing project. The team met with policy and civil society stakeholders to disseminate findings from the recent working paper and policy brief on the integration of food security in the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Drawing on a mixed-methods review of existing WPS policy documents, the study found that food security is relatively neglected in the agenda, even when compared to other domains of human security, and in contexts that have experienced severe food crises. Read more...

Summary of Conflict and Hunger workshop in Dublin

Call for papers, 15 May 2024

Seminar with Naledi Joyi at UCD, 30 November 2023

Seminar with Liezelle Kumalo at UCD, 29 November 2023