Socioeconomic Characteristics of Households’ Adaptive Capacity to Food Insecurity in Mali

This article examines the socioeconomic characteristics of Malian households' ability to adapt to food insecurity through their choice of coping strategies, based on data from INSTAT's EMOP-2022 survey. The main objective is to determine households' ability to adapt to this phenomenon. The results of the logistic regression indicate that households in the Ségou region are more likely to adapt to food insecurity than those in Kayes. The ability of households in other regions and Bamako to adapt is negative. Single people and divorced heads of households, referring to monogamous individuals, are likely to adapt to food insecurity. Households that have resorted to coping strategies such as selling capital, seeking help from a relative or friend, selling livestock, taking out a loan, and receiving assistance from NGOs have a high capacity to adapt to food insecurity, with values of 0.687, 0.660, 0.601, 0.545, and 0.491, respectively. Descriptive statistics indicate that government and NGO intervention has been concentrated in the Mord region of Mali. The study recommends that government and NGOs interventions aimed at strengthening households' capacity to cope with climate variability and food shortages linked to extreme events should be geared towards the specific socio-economic characteristics of households that influence their adaptation strategies.