Assessing The Impacts Of The Covid 19 Pandemic On The Livelihoods Of Rural People

In this paper we focus specifically on differences in the welfare impacts of COVID-19 on rural livelihoods between countries using nationally representative data that we disaggregate by food system typology. This typology captures key structural differences in the organization of rural economies and the vulnerabilities to rural livelihoods due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures. In particular, we draw on household survey data collected from 54 countries through the World Bank’s COVID-19 High Frequency Monitoring Dashboard to generate descriptive data on COVID-19 impacts in rural areas across three dimensions: income, coping strategies and food security. These descriptive data are disaggregated into four food system categories and contextualized and validated through a systematic review of rigorous, survey-based studies of COVID-19 impacts in rural areas. Through this analysis, the report provides insights on how COVID-19 is influencing rural livelihoods, how its impacts vary between countries and food system typologies, and, ultimately, how policymakers and the international community need to respond in order to foster an inclusive and sustainable recovery.

This paper combines pre-pandemic face-to-face survey data with follow up phone surveys collected in April-May 2020 to quantify the overall and differential impacts of COVID-19 on household food security, labor market participation and local food prices in Nigeria. We exploit spatial variation in exposure to COVID-19 related infections and lockdown measures along with temporal differences in our outcomes of interest using a difference-in-difference approach. We find that those households exposed to higher COVID-19 cases or mobility lockdowns experience a significant increase in measures of food insecurity. Examining possible transmission channels for this effect, we find that COVID-19 significantly reduces labor market participation and increases food prices. We find that impacts differ by economic activities and households. For instance, lockdown measures increased households' experience of food insecurity by 12 percentage points and reduced the probability of participation in non-farm business activities by 13 percentage points. These lockdown measures have smaller impacts on wage-related activities and farming activities. In terms of food security, households relying on non-farm businesses, poorer households, those with school-aged children, and those living in remote and conflicted-affected zones have experienced relatively larger deteriorations in food insecurity. These findings can help inform immediate and medium-term policy responses, including social protection policies aiming at ameliorating the impacts of the pandemic, as well as guide targeting strategies of governments and international donor agencies by identifying the most impacted sub-populations.

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, economic, and social disruptions caused by this global crisis continue to evolve. The impacts of the pandemic are likely to endure for years to come, with poor, marginalized, and vulnerable groups the most affected. In COVID-19 & Global Food Security: Two Years Later, the editors bring together contributions from new IFPRI research, blogs, and the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub to examine the pandemic’s effects on poverty, food security, nutrition, and health around the world. This volume presents key lessons learned on food security and food system resilience in 2020 and 2021 and assesses the effectiveness of policy responses to the crisis. Looking forward, the authors consider how the pandemic experience can inform both recovery and longer-term efforts to build more resilient food systems.

This report assesses the impacts of the COVID-19 on the agrifood sector and rural areas in Türkiye. Taking a panoramic picture of the agrifood sector in the country during the COVID-19 period, the study portrays how the pandemic impact on agrifood chains, smallholders and rural economies in Türkiye. The report titled “COVID-19 Rapid Impact Assessment on Agri-Food Sector and Rural Areas in Türkiye” is an outcome of a joint study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Türkiye. Besides assessments on how the pandemic has affected agrifood sector, the report presents policy recommendations for sector preparedness and response, and agricultural and rural resilience. Moreover, the report sheds light on the connection between its suggestions and the Sustainable Development Goals.Authors of this study aims to contribute to the COVID-19 Socio-Economic Impact and Response Task Team (SEIRTT) in United Nations Türkiye, co-led by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Resident Coordinator’s Office. In thematic terms, the report supports efforts to analyse socio-economic dimensions of the COVID-19 in Türkiye. Moreover, the report sets the basis for further institutional engagement with Government and other relevant partners and stakeholders in the short to medium term with respect to agriculture and food sectors.KEYWORDS:

Rwanda’s policy response to COVID-19 has been widely praised for its rapid, systematic, and comprehensive approach to containing the pandemic. Although the economic consequences of the actions taken are unavoidable, the country expects to return its economy to its high-growth trajectory as the pandemic subsides. We used economic modeling tools designed to estimate the short-term economywide impacts of the unanticipated, rapid-onset economic shocks of COVID-19 on Rwanda. In this brief, we present a synopsis of the results of this analysis. • During the six-week lockdown that began in March 2020, we estimate Rwanda’s GDP fell 39.1 percent (RWF 435 billion; USD 484 million) when compared to a no-COVID situation. • Rwanda’s GDP in 2020 will be between 12 and 16 percent lower than a predicted no-COVID GDP, depending on the pace of economic recovery. The losses in annual GDP are between RWF 1.0 and 1.5 trillion (USD 1.1 to 1.6 billion). • While GDP for the industrial and services sectors were estimated to have fallen during the lockdown period by 57 and 48 percent, respectively, exemptions of COVID-19 restrictions for the agricultural sector limited the decline in agricultural GDP to 7 percent compared to a no-COVID situation. • During the lockdown period, the national poverty rate is estimated to have increased by 10.9 percentage points as 1.3 million people, mostly in rural areas, fell into temporary poverty. Poverty rates are expected to stabilize by the end of 2020, increasing only by between 0.4 and 1.1 percentage points over the pre-COVID situation. While these figures are encouraging, they mask the impacts on poor households of the sharp poverty spike during the lockdown and the inherent complexity of poverty dynamics post-lockdown. Looking forward, the speed and success of Rwanda’s economic recovery will depend critically on expanding Rwanda’s social protection programs, supporting enterprises of all sizes, providing broad assistance to the agri-food system, and restoring international trade.

India has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of a larger quasi-experimental impact assessment, we assess the pandemic’s effects on coping behavior in 80 villages spread across four districts and three states (n=772). Half of these villages were targeted by a largescale common land restoration program spearheaded by an NGO, the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES). The other half are yet to be targeted but are statistically similar vis-à-vis FES’s village targeting criteria. Analyzing the results of a phone survey conducting eight to ten months into the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, we find that the livelihood activities of households in both sets of villages were adversely impacted by COVID-19. Consequently, most households had to resort to various coping strategies, e.g., distressed asset sales and reduced farm input expenditure. From the same mobile survey data, we further construct a Livelihoods Coping Strategies Index (LCSI) and find that households in villages targeted by FES’s common land restoration initiative score 11.3% lower on this index on average. While modest, this statistically significant effect estimate (p<0.05) is consistent across the four districts and robust to alterative model and outcome specifications. We find no empirical support that our observed effect was due to improved access to common pool resources or government social programs. Instead, we speculate that this effect may be driven by institutional factors, rather than economic, a proposition we will test in future work.

In this paper, we analyze the economic impacts of response measures adopted in Ethiopia to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We carry out simulations using an economywide multiplier model based on a 2017 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the country that properly depicts interactions between economic agents. The pandemic’s impact on the global economy combined with disruptions it causes in Ethiopia represents a large, unprecedented shock to the country’s economy. In such situations, a SAM-based multiplier model provides an ideal tool for measuring the short-term direct and indirect impacts of a shock on an economic system since there is limited room for proper adjustment of economic decisions. We model the seven-week partial lockdown policy implemented in Ethiopia from mid-March to early May 2020. We also consider two possible economic recovery scenarios that may emerge as the COVID-19 control policies are relaxed during the latter part of 2020 in order to generate insights on the potential continuing impact of the virus at the end of 2020. Although the country took early swift measures, our assessment of the partial lockdown measures suggests that they were not as strict as those observed in other Africa countries. Accordingly, our estimates of the economic costs of COVID-19 on Ethiopia are significantly lower than those reported for other countries on the continent. We estimate that during the lockdown period Ethiopia’s GDP suffered a 14 percent loss (43.5 billion Birr or 1.9 billion USD) compared to a no-COVID case over the same period. Nearly two-thirds of the losses were in the services sector. Although no direct restrictions were imposed on the agriculture sector, which serves as the primary means of livelihood for most Ethiopians, the sector faced a 4.7 percent loss in output due to its linkages with the rest of the economy. Poor export performance due to a slowdown in global trade and restrictions on the transport sector also partly explain the decline in agricultural output. The broader agri-food system also was affected considerably because of its linkages with the rest of the economy. In terms of the welfare of Ethiopians, we estimate that the economic impacts during the lockdown caused 10.1 million additional people to fall below the poverty line. These findings have implications for better understanding the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 and for policy design during the recovery period to return Ethiopia’s economy to a normal growth trajectory and to protect the livelihoods of the most vulnerable in the process.