Food Security and COVID-19

Jan. 31, 2022 - Many countries are facing growing levels of food insecurity, reversing years of development gains, and threatening the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Even before COVID-19 reduced incomes and disrupted supply chains, chronic and acute hunger were on the rise due to various factors, including conflict, socio-economic conditions, natural hazards, climate change and pests. COVID-19 impacts have led to severe and widespread increases in global food insecurity, affecting vulnerable households in almost every country, with impacts expected to continue through 2022. This brief looks at rising food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic and World Bank responses to date.

Overview

While the outlook for global food supplies remains favorable, food prices are near all-time highs, and high transport costs are raising import bills. That hits poor and developing countries hardest, as they depend on food imports the most. As of January 2022, the Agricultural Commodity Price Index is 25% higher than its January 2021 level. Maize and wheat prices are 20% and 25% higher, respectively, than their January 2021 levels, and rice prices are about 21% lower.

With economic recoveries slowing, COVID-19 uncertainties and disruptions continuing, and worsening fiscal capacity, the outlook for food and nutrition security for many low- and middle-income countries is of significant concern.

Numerous countries are experiencing high food price inflation at the retail level, reflecting labor shortages, a sharp rise in the price of fertilizer, currency devaluations, and other factors. Rising food prices have a greater impact on people in low- and middle-income countries since they spend a larger share of their income on food than people in high-income countries.

Rapid phone surveys done by the World Bank in 72 countries show a significant number of people running out of food or reducing their consumption. Reduced calorie intake and compromised nutrition threaten gains in poverty reduction and health and could have lasting impacts on the cognitive development of young children. Between 720 and 811 million people in the world went hungry in 2020, according to the UN report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Looking at the middle of the projected range (768 million), around 118 million more people were facing chronic hunger in 2020 than in 2019. Using a different indicator that tracks year-round access to adequate food, nearly 2.37 billion people (or 30% of the global population) lacked access to adequate food in 2020 - a rise of 320 million in just one year.

Recent data also confirms significant increases in the number of people facing acute food insecurity in 2020-2021. Acute food insecurity is defined as when a person's life or livelihood is in immediate danger because of lack of food. According to Global Network Against Food Crises, an estimated 161 million people experienced "crisis" levels of acute food insecurity in 2021, a nearly 4% increase over the prior year. Additionally, 227 million people were estimated to be in "stressed" acute food insecurity - one step away from crisis, in 2021, almost 7% more than the previous year.

Hunger was trending upward even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing effects from extreme climate events, conflict, and other shocks to economic opportunities. Of the 161 million people experiencing crisis conditions in 2021, 81% (or 132 million) lived in countries affected by Fragility, Conflict and Violence.

World Bank Support

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank Group has deployed more than $157 billion to fight the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic, the fastest and largest crisis response in history. The financing is helping more than 100 countries strengthen pandemic preparedness, protect the poor and jobs, and jump-start a climate-friendly recovery, including in agriculture.

At the country level, the World Bank Group is working with governments and international partners to closely monitor domestic food and agricultural supply chains, track how the loss of employment and income is impacting people's ability to buy food, and ensure that food systems continue to function despite COVID-19 challenges.

"Responding to the Emerging Food Security Crisis," a paper released in December 2020, summarized the Bank's early response in the poorest countries: IDA provided $5.3 billion in new commitments between April and September 2020 for food security. This has been through a combination of short-term COVID-19 responses and investments to address the longer-term drivers of food insecurity.

Examples of short- and long-term financing include the following projects:

• In Bangladesh, an Emergency Action Plan, mobilized as part of a Livestock Dairy Development project, provided US$87.8 million in cash transfers to 407,000 vulnerable dairy and poultry farmers to support their businesses. Financing also went towards providing personal protection equipment, farm equipment and enhanced veterinary services through the procurement of 64 mobile veterinary clinics.
• In Bhutan, the World Bank re-aligned its portfolio to support food distribution in the short term and enhance food production in the medium term through inputs supply and irrigation.
• In Chad, $30 million in emergency financing was mobilized to provide food assistance through the free distribution of food kits to 437,000 vulnerable people experiencing severe food and nutritional insecurity located in both urban and rural areas and provided seeds and small agricultural equipment to 25,000 poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers to preserve their productive capacity for the imminent growing season.
• In Guatemala, the Responding to COVID-19: Modern and Resilient Agri-food Value Chains project aims to provide emergency response to COVID-19 and increase economic and climate resilience by improving the efficiency of key agricultural value chains and investing in modern technologies and practices.
• In Haiti, the Resilient Productive Landscape projec t mobilized emergency funding to help over 16,000 farmers access seeds and fertilizer and safeguard production for the next two cropping seasons.
• In India, women's self-help groups, supported under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission co-financed by the World aBank, mobilized to meet shortages in masks and sanitizers, run community kitchens and restore fresh food supplies, provide food and support to vulnerable and high-risk families, provide financial services in rural areas, and disseminate COVID-19 advisories among rural communities. These self-help groups, built over a period of 15 years, tap the skills of about 62 million women across India.
• In the Kyrgyz Republic, the World Bank-supported, GAFSP-funded Agricultural Productivity and Nutrition Improvement Project, which focuses primarily on improving water infrastructure and developing the capacity of water users' associations (WUAs), distributed US$1.1 million in agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizer through 30 project WUAs to address vulnerable populations.
• In Rwanda, the Sustainable Agricultural Intensification and Food Security Project received additional financing to help address the impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns. The Bank's existing Social Protection project was also adjusted to be COVID-19 responsive.
• In Senegal, a $150 million IDA credit is helping increase exports of high-value crops such as shelled groundnuts and horticultural products, increase dairy farming productivity, and reduce the mortality rate of small ruminants, mitigating the negative impacts of the pandemic while investing in more productive and resilient practices.
• In Sierra Leone, emergency financing under the ongoing Smallholder Commercialization and Agribusiness Development Project is supporting government COVID-19 response initiatives with inputs, land mechanization services, and extension services to support rice farmers. The World Bank-financed Social Safety Net Project also scaled up its cash transfer system to provide support to the most vulnerable households.
• In Tajikistan, through an existing Targeted Social Assistance system, the Bank financed cash transfers to food-insecure households with children under the age of 3 to mitigate the effects of increases in food prices and to protect children's nutrition.

Prevention

We're committed to helping countries prevent the next zoonotic disease from turning into a pandemic and be better prepared when risks materialize.

World Bank experience with the Avian Influenza shows that cross-sectoral, coordinated investments in human, environmental and animal health (the "One Health" approach) are a cost-effective way to manage risks and control diseases at the source. Over 70% of emerging infectious diseases (EID) in humans have their source in animals. Transmission of pathogens from animals to humans and EIDs are increasing in a rapidly changing environment, with deforestation, land-use change and rapid population growth amplifying the exposure of humans to diseases carried by animals.

Under the first COVID-19 package of World Bank Group financing, countries can invest in longer-term prevention, such as strengthened veterinary services, disease surveillance and food safety. In India, for example, the COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Project will improve disease surveillance systems in humans and animals and health information systems across the country. In China, a new project will improve risk-based surveillance systems for zoonotic and other emerging health threats. It will strengthen the capacity for risk assessment, diagnosis and monitoring of human, animal, and wildlife diseases. It will also improve protocols for information sharing between relevant agencies.

Last Updated: Jan 31, 2022