Covid 19 And Food Security In Ethiopia

We assess the impact of Ethiopia’s flagship social protection program, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) on the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and nutrition security of households, mothers, and children. We use both pre-pandemic in-person household survey data and a post-pandemic phone survey. Two thirds of our respondents reported that their incomes had fallen after the pandemic began and almost half reported that their ability to satisfy their food needs had worsened. Employing a household fixed effects difference-in-difference approach, we find that the household food insecurity increased by 11.7 percentage points and the size of the food gap by 0.47 months in the aftermath of the onset of the pandemic. Participation in the PSNP offsets virtually all of this adverse change; the likelihood of becoming food insecure increased by only 2.4 percentage points for PSNP households and the duration of the food gap increased by only 0.13 months. The protective role of PSNP is greater for poorer households and those living in remote areas. Results are robust to definitions of PSNP participation, different estimators and how we account for the non-randomness of mobile phone ownership. PSNP households were less likely to reduce expenditures on health and education by 7.7 percentage points and were less likely to reduce expenditures on agricultural inputs by 13 percentage points. By contrast, mothers’ and children’s diets changed little, despite some changes in the composition of diets with consumption of animal source foods declining significantly.

This paper assesses the impact of Ethiopia's flagship social protection program, the Productive Safety Net Program on the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food and nutrition security of households, mothers, and children. The analysis uses pre-pandemic, in-person household survey data and a post-pandemic phone survey. Two-thirds of the respondents reported that their incomes had fallen after the pandemic began, and almost half reported that their ability to satisfy their food needs had worsened. Employing a household fixed effects difference-in-difference approach, the study finds that household food insecurity increased by 11.7 percentage points and the size of the food gap by 0.47 months in the aftermath of the onset of the pandemic. Participation in the Productive Safety Net Program offsets virtually all of this adverse change - the likelihood of becoming food insecure increased by only 2.4 percentage points for Productive Safety Net Program households and the duration of the food gap increased by only 0.13 month. The protective role of the program is greater for poorer households and those living in remote areas. The results are robust to various definitions of program participation, different estimators, and different ways of accounting for the non-randomness of mobile phone ownership. Productive Safety Net Program participants were less likely to reduce expenditures on health and education by 7.7 percentage points and less likely to reduce expenditures on agricultural inputs by 13 percentage points. By contrast, mothers' and children's diets changed little, despite some changes in the composition of diets, with consumption of animal source foods declining significantly.

In early July 2020, we called by telephone a representative sample of nearly 600 households in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to assess income changes and household food and nutrition security status during the COVID-19 pandemic (recall period covering June). This was the third administration of a COVID-19 related survey to these households, following surveys in early May 2020 and early June. About 64 percent of the households indicated in the third survey that their incomes were lower than expected (down from 67 percent reporting lower incomes than expected in previous month) and 42 percent reported that they are extremely stressed about the situation (down from 45 percent in previous month). Using a pre-pandemic wealth index, we find that less-wealthy households were considerably more likely to report income losses and high stress levels than were wealthier households. Compared to the period just before the pandemic (January and February 2020), indicators measuring food security have significantly worsened but during the pandemic they have remained relatively stable. Households now are less frequently consuming relatively more expensive but nutritionally richer foods, such as fruit and dairy products. However, overall food security status in Addis Ababa is not yet alarming and we see small signs of improvements in this July phone survey relative to previous months. However, many households have drawn down their savings over past months to buffer their food consumption. As the daily COVID-19 infection rates are still rising in Ethiopia, the food security situation in Addis Ababa may deteriorate over coming months, especially as the savings levels among the poorest households are now low. This calls for a further scale-up and strengthening of existing support programs.

In early June 2020, we called by telephone a representative sample of nearly 600 households in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to assess income changes and household food and nutrition security status during the COVID-19 pandemic (survey period covering May). This was the second administration of a COVID-19 related survey to these households, following an initial survey conducted in early May 2020 covering the situation of the survey households in April. More than two-third of the households indicated in the second survey that their incomes were lower than expected (up from 58 percent in April) and 45 percent reported that they are extremely stressed about the situation (up from 35 percent in April). Using a pre-pandemic wealth index, we find that less-wealthy households were considerably more likely to report income losses and high stress levels than were wealthier households. Compared to a period just before the pandemic (January and February 2020), indicators measuring food security have significantly worsened but have remained the same since April. During the pandemic, households are less and less frequently consuming relatively more expensive but nutritionally richer foods, such as fruit and dairy products. However, overall food security status in Addis Ababa is not yet alarming, possibly because many households have been able to use their savings to buffer food consumption. As the pandemic is still in an early stage in Ethiopia, it is likely that these savings will not last throughout the pandemic, calling for a rapid scale-up of existing support programs.

We called by telephone a representative sample of 600 households in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to assess household food and nutrition security status during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half the households indicated that their incomes were lower than expected and more than one-third reported that they are extremely stressed about the situation. Using a pre-pandemic wealth index, we find that less-wealthy households were considerably more likely to report income losses and high stress levels than were wealthier households. Compared to a period just before the pandemic (January and February 2020), indicators measuring food security have significantly worsened. In April, households were less frequently consuming relatively more expensive but nutritionally richer foods, such as fruit and dairy products. However, overall food security status in Addis Ababa is not yet alarming, possibly because most households have used their savings to buffer food consumption. It is likely that these savings will not last for much longer, calling for a rapid scale-up of existing support programs.

As in most low and middle-income countries, the paucity of timely economic data in Ethiopia makes it difficult to understand the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. To mitigate this, several organizations have launched phone surveys to gather more information about the crisis. This research report reviews the available phone survey evidence as of mid-August 2020 and identifies knowledge gaps. First, the available evidence suggest that the pandemic has not led to unusually large increases in food prices. However, a case study in the vegetable sector suggests that price dynamics are highly context and crop specific, calling for more comprehensive price monitoring to identify food value chains and areas where food price increases may have been unusually rapid. Second, employment losses have concentrated on informal sector workers while redundancies in the formal sector have been less significant. Third, there is considerable uncertainty about the income, poverty, and food security implications of this crisis. While most households report income losses, the qualitative and subjective nature of these questions meanthat the magnitudes of these losses are unknown. In Addis Ababa, less subjective food security measures indicate only small negative changes in household food and nutrition security. Finally, due to limited access to mobile phones in rural areas, we have imperfect and incomplete information on how this crisis is affecting rural households.

This report describes: (i) policy measures enacted by the Government of Ethiopia to contain the spread of the virus; (ii) policies and measures to stabilize the functioning of agri-food systems; (iii) potential effects of policies on agri-food systems and vulnerable groups. Finally, the profile also assesses longer-term options for agri-food system policies and investments in Ethiopia so as to make them more resilient.

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 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.

It is widely feared that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a significant worsening of the food security situation in low and middle-income countries. One reason for this is the disruption of food marketing systems and subsequent changes in farm and consumer prices. Based on primary data in Ethiopia collected just before the start and a few months into the pandemic, we assess changes in farm and consumer prices of four major vegetables and the contribution of different segments of the rural-urban value chain in urban retail price formation. We find large, but heterogeneous, price changes for different vegetables with relatively larger changes seen at the farm level, compared to the consumer level, leading to winners and losers among local vegetable farmers due to pandemicrelated trade disruptions. We further note that despite substantial hurdles in domestic trade reported by most value chain agents, increases in marketing – and especially transportation – costs have not been the major contributor to overall changes in retail prices. Marketing margins even declined for half of the vegetables studied. The relatively small changes in marketing margins overall indicate the resilience of these domestic value chains during the pandemic in Ethiopia.