Public food transfers during pandemic: Insights from an IFPRI survey in Bangladesh (Financial Express)

Financial Express published an op-ed by several authors including IFPRI-South Asia Office’s division director Shahidur Rashid and research fellow Kalyani Raghunathan. In the op-ed, the authors state that public food transfer programs act as a lifeline for many poor households that might otherwise live with constant food insecurity and the threat of hunger. In Bangladesh, the preexistence of the Food Friendly Programmes and similar programs served as immediate shock absorbers that might have buffered the impact of the pandemic. On the other hand, the scale and nature of this crisis was unanticipated and exposed several administrative and logistical challenges, some of which were compounded by the further restrictions on movements to contain the spread of infection. At present, little is known about the performance of transfer programs such as the FFP in times of large unanticipated shocks. (Reach 39K)  Republished in Dhaka Times