IFPRI Insights: COVID-19 Special Issue (May 21)

researcher spotlight

Akhter Ahmed is a Senior Research Fellow in the IFPRI’s Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit and Country Representative for IFPRI Bangladesh. He has worked on strategies for agricultural and rural development, social protection, and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and undernutrition in developing countries including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Malawi, the Philippines, and Turkey.

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IFPRI Insights: COVID-19 Special Issue (May 21)

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May 21, 2020

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IFPRI’s analysis of the global pandemic continues to grow with a new tool for systematically monitoring COVID-19 policy responses across and different policy domains, events discussing the impacts on gender and nutrition, and blog posts on household-level impacts of economic restrictions in Ethiopia as well as modelling results of the effect of rice and wheat export restrictions on hunger.

Heavy Toll on Ethiopia’s Poor: Poorer households appear to be more affected by Ethiopia’s COVID-19 restrictions than their rich counterparts, analysis by Alan de Brauw shows. Two-fifths of households experiencing income losses report using savings, and another one-fourth report reducing their household food expenditures as their primary strategy, with potentially significant impacts on food and nutrition security. (Read Blog)

Tracking Trends in Policy: Drawing on a database of COVID policy responses from 18 countries, Danielle Resnick finds that urban food traders have encountered some of the most severe pandemic restrictions, and that many governments have focused their COVID efforts on protecting consumer livelihoods, with agricultural support remaining rarer. (Read Blog)

Toxic Trade Restrictions: Consumers are not the only ones hoarding food. As countries limit exports of key staples, Timothy Sulser and Shahnila Dunston assess the potential impacts of these steps on global rice and wheat markets, finding that export restrictions on rice could significantly boost global prices and push millions of poor rice consumers into hunger. (Read Blog)

>> Read More Blogs

Systematically Tracking COVID Responses
The COVID-19 Policy Response (CPR) Portal, a project led by Danielle Resnick, systematically captures national and subnational policy responses to the pandemic through multiple channels, including population restrictions, social protection, trade, health, fiscal, and monetary measures. The Portal also includes the range of institutional collaborations governments have used to manage the pandemic, as well as varying levels of citizen compliance. The database can be used by researchers and policymakers to gain insights on the optimal policies for fostering resilient food systems during crises. (Visit Portal)

What do we need for a gender-sensitive COVID-19 response in agriculture and food security? Insights from research and practice

May 21, 2020
9:30-10:45 AM EDT

The event will feature researchers sharing what they have learned on the role of gender in the food price crisis and earlier pandemics; experience and insights from grassroots organizations and NGOs in India and Kenya; and views of funding organizations, as they all work together toward a gender research agenda to inform future programmatic and policy responses..

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For further analyses on the impact of COVID-19 on food and nutrition security in South Asia please see the IFPRI South Asia Newsletter : COVID-19 Special Edition)