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	The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition by UN News, IFAD, UNDP, agencies   Oct. 2020   Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems - Joint statement by ILO, FAO, IFAD and WHO   The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work.   The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people 820 million (sofi 2019), could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.   Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world's 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets.   Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food.   The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets.   The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.   Millions of agricultural workers - waged and self-employed - while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse.   With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks.   Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour.   Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers - from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors - as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people's livelihoods and food security.   In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers' health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis.   Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected.   These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants.   Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery.   Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.   Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world.   Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.   We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors.   Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.   We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people.   http://www.fao.org/cfs/home/events/cfs-high-level-special-event-on-food-security-and-nutrition/en/ http://www.fao.org/2019-ncov/en/ http://www.fao.org/cfs/home/en/ http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/ http://news.un.org/en/tags/food-insecurity http://hungermap.wfp.org/   * September update of the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises with a special focus on COVID‑19: http://bit.ly/3jPhjAG   * Impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition: developing effective policy responses to address the hunger and malnutrition pandemic, by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security (Sep. 2020): http://www.fao.org/3/cb1000en/cb1000en.pdf   * Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security (June 2020): http://www.fao.org/3/ca9731en/ca9731en.pdf   June 2020   The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition, by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.   There is more than enough food in the world to feed our population of 7.8 billion people. But, today, more than 820 million people are hungry.   And some 144 million children under the age of 5 are stunted - more than one in five children worldwide.   Our food systems are failing, and the Covid-19 pandemic is making things worse. Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults.   This year, over 49 million extra people may fall into extreme poverty due to the COVID-19 crisis. The number of people who are acutely food or nutrition insecure will rapidly expand. Every percentage point drop in global Gross Domestic Product means an additional 0.7 million stunted children.   Even in countries with abundant food, we see risks of disruptions in the food supply chain. We need to act now to avoid the worst impacts of our efforts to control the pandemic.   Today I am launching a Policy Brief on the Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition. It has three clear findings.   First, we must mobilize to save lives and livelihoods, focusing attention where the risk is most acute.   That means designating food and nutrition services as essential, while implementing appropriate protections for food workers.   It means preserving critical humanitarian food, livelihood and nutrition assistance to vulnerable groups.   And it means positioning food in food-crisis countries to reinforce and scale up social protection systems.   Countries need to scale up support for food processing, transport and local food markets, and they must keep trade corridors open to ensure the continuous functioning of food systems.   And they must ensure that relief and stimulus packages reach the most vulnerable, including meeting the liquidity needs of small-scale food producers and rural businesses.   Second, we must strengthen social protection systems for nutrition.   Countries need to safeguard access to safe, nutritious foods, particularly for young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, older people and other at-risk groups.   And they need to adapt and expand social protection schemes to benefit nutritionally at-risk groups. This includes supporting children who no longer have access to school meals.   Third, we must invest in the future. We have an opportunity to build a more inclusive and sustainable world.   Let us build food systems that better address the needs of food producers and workers. Let us provide more inclusive access to healthy and nutritious food so we can eradicate hunger.   And let us rebalance the relationship between food systems and the natural environment by transforming them to work better with nature and for the climate.   We cannot forget that food systems contribute up to 29 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, including 44 per cent of methane, and are having a negative impact on biodiversity.   If we do these things and more, as indicated by the brief we are launching today, we can avoid some of the worst impacts of the COVID19 pandemic on food security and nutrition and we can do so in a way that supports the green transition that we need to make.   * The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition: http://bit.ly/3hfp5DM   http://reliefweb.int/report/world/policy-brief-impact-covid-19-food-security-and-nutrition-june-2020 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/09/world-faces-worst-food-crisis-50-years-un-coronavirus http://www.iisd.org/articles/food-crisis-transform-system http://ceres2030.org/shorthand_story/10-bn-needed-to-avert-the-covid-19-hunger-crisis/ http://www.rosalux.de/en/publication/id/42635 http://bit.ly/2R6xFcv http://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000117706/download/ http://reliefweb.int/report/world/covid-19-could-reverse-gains-made-african-children-warns-save-children   * FAO: COVID-19 is driving up hunger in vulnerable countries: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1280414/icode/   May 2020   Declines in fundamental areas of human development are being felt across most countries. (UNDP)   Global human development which can be measured as a combination of the world's education, health and living standards may well decline this year for the first time since the concept was introduced in 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warned.   'The world has seen many crises over the past 30 years, including the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09. Each has hit human development hard but, overall, development gains accrued globally year-on-year', said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. 'COVID-19 with its triple hit to health, education, and income may change this trend'.   Declines in fundamental areas of human development are being felt across most countries - rich and poor - in every region.   COVID-19's global death toll has exceeded 300,000 people, while the global per capita income this year is expected to fall by four per cent.   With school closures, UNDP estimates of the effective out-of-school rate - the percentage of primary school-age children, adjusted to reflect those without internet access indicate that 60 per cent of children are not getting an education, leading to global levels not seen since the 1980s.   The combined impact of these shocks could signify the largest reversal in human development on record.   This is not counting other significant effects, for instance, in the progress towards gender equality. The negative impacts on women and girls span economic - earning and saving less and greater job insecurity, reproductive health, unpaid care work and gender-based violence.   The drop in human development is expected to be much higher in developing countries that are less able to cope with the pandemic's social and economic fallout than richer nations.   In education, with schools closed and stark divides in access to online learning, UNDP estimates show that 86 percent of children in primary education are now effectively out-of-school in countries with low human development-compared with just 20 percent in countries with very high human development.   But with more equitable internet access, - where countries close the gap with leaders in their development group, something feasible - the current gaps in education could narrow considerably.   Determined, equity-focused interventions can help economies and societies rally, mitigating the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.   'This crisis shows that if we fail to bring equity into the policy toolkit, many will fall further behind. This is particularly important for the 'new necessities' of the 21st century, such as access to the internet, which is helping us to benefit from tele-education, tele-medicine, and to work from home', says the Director of the Human Development Report Office at UNDP.   Implementing equity-focused approaches would be affordable. For instance, closing the gap in access to the internet for low and middle-income countries is estimated to cost just one per cent of the extraordinary fiscal support packages the world has so far committed to respond to COVID-19.   The importance of equity is emphasized in the United Nations framework for the immediate socio-economic response to COVID-19 crisis, which sets out a green, gender-equal, good governance baseline from which to build a 'new normal'.   It recommends five priority steps to tackle the complexity of this crisis: protecting health systems and services; ramping up social protection; protecting jobs, small and medium-sized businesses and informal sector workers; making macroeconomic policies work for everyone; and promoting peace, good governance and trust to build social cohesion.   http://hdr.undp.org/en/hdp-covid   * The 2020 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was released in July by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme.   The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures the complexities of poor people’s lives, individually and collectively, each year. This report focuses on how multidimensional poverty has declined in a number of countries, however across 107 developing countries, 1.3 billion people (22 percent) continue to live in multidimensional poverty.   The report offers a picture of trends in multidimensional poverty, covering 5 billion people. It probes patterns between and within countries, showcasing different ways of making progress. Together with data on the $1.90 a day poverty rate, the trends monitor global poverty in different forms. The COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in the midst of this analysis. While data are not yet available to measure the rise of global poverty after the pandemic, simulations based on different scenarios suggest that, if unaddressed, progress across 70 developing countries could be set back by up to 10 years.   Children show higher rates of multidimensional poverty: half of multidimensionally poor people (644 million) are children under age 18. One in three children is poor compared with one in six adults.   About 84.3 percent of multidimensionally poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (558 million) and South Asia (530 million). 67 percent of multidimensionally poor people are in middle-income countries, where the incidence of multidimensional poverty ranges from 0 percent to 57 percent nationally and from 0 percent to 91 percent sub nationally.   Every multidimensionally poor person is being left behind in a critical mass of indicators. For example, 803 million multidimensionally poor people live in a household where someone is undernourished, 476 million have an out-of-school child at home, 1.2 billion lack access to clean cooking fuel, 687 million lack electricity and 1.03 billion have substandard housing materials.   107 million multidimensionally poor people are age 60 or older, a particularly importantly figure during the COVID-19 pandemic. In nearly a third of the countries studied, there was no reduction in multidimensional poverty for children.   Of the 1.3 billion multidimensionally poor people, 82.3 percent are deprived in at least five indicators simultaneously. 71 percent of the 5.9 billion people covered experience at least one deprivation; however, the average number of deprivations they experience is five. 84.2 percent of multidimensionally poor people live in rural areas, where they are more vulnerable to environmental shocks.   In every developing region the proportion of people who are multidimensionally poor is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. In Sub-Saharan Africa 71.9 percent of people in rural areas (466 million people) are multidimensionally poor compared with 25.2 percent (92 million people) in urban areas. In South Asia 37.6 percent of people in rural areas (465 million people) are multidimensionally poor compared with 11.3 percent (65 million people) in urban areas.   * 2020 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): http://hdr.undp.org/en/2020-mpi   http://srpoverty.org/2020/07/16/charting-pathways-out-of-poverty-with-the-global-multidimensional-poverty-index/ Visit the related web page
	2020 Global Nutrition Report by Venkatesh Mannar, Renata Micha, Gerda Verburg   The Global Nutrition Report calls on governments, businesses and civil society to step up efforts to address malnutrition in all its forms and tackle injustices in food and health systems.   Everyone deserves access to healthy, affordable food and quality nutrition care. This access is hindered by deeper inequities that arise from unjust systems and processes that structure everyday living conditions.   This year's Global Nutrition Report uses the concept of nutrition equity to elucidate these inequities and show how they determine opportunities and barriers to attaining healthy diets and lives, leading to unequal nutrition outcomes.   We examine the global burden of malnutrition with an equity lens to develop a fuller understanding of nutrition inequalities. In doing this, we pinpoint and prioritise key actions to amplify our efforts and propel progress towards ending malnutrition in all its forms.   The Global Nutrition Report calls for a pro-equity agenda that mainstreams nutrition into food systems and health systems, supported by strong financing and accountability. With only five years left to meet the 2025 global nutrition targets, time is running out. We must focus action where the need is greatest for maximum impact.   Today, one in every nine people in the world is hungry, and one in every three is overweight or obese. More and more countries experience the double burden of malnutrition, where undernutrition coexists with overweight, obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs).   The trend is clear: progress is too slow to meet the global targets. Not one country is on course to meet all ten of the 2025 global nutrition targets and just 8 of 194 countries are on track to meet four targets.   Almost a quarter of all children under 5 years of age are stunted. At the same time, overweight and obesity are increasing rapidly in nearly every country in the world, with no signs of slowing.   Progress on malnutrition is not just too slow, it is also deeply unfair. New analysis shows that global and national patterns mask significant inequalities within countries and populations, with the most vulnerable groups being most affected. Nutrition outcomes also vary substantially across countries.   Underweight is a persisting issue for the poorest countries and can be ten times higher than in wealthier countries. Overweight and obesity prevail in wealthier countries at rates of up to five times higher than in poorer countries.   Within every country in the world, we see striking inequalities according to location, age, sex, education and wealth - while conflict and other forms of fragility compound the problem.   This report finds a strong urban-rural divide, and even larger differences across communities. In children under 5 years of age, wasting can be up to nine times higher in certain communities within countries, four times higher for stunting and three times higher for overweight and obesity.   There is a clear link between infant and young child feeding practices and household characteristics. Rates of solid food introduction and minimum diet diversity are substantially lower for children in the poorest households, in rural areas or with a less educated mother. Although more high-quality nutrition data is needed, we have enough to act.   Poor diets and resulting malnutrition are among the greatest current societal challenges, causing vast health, economic and environmental burdens. To fix the global nutrition crisis equitably, we must shift our approach dramatically in two ways: focusing on food and health.   First, we must address inequities in food systems, from production to consumption. Current food systems do not enable people to make healthy food choices. The vast majority of people today simply cannot access or afford a healthy diet. The reasons for this are complex.   Existing agriculture systems are largely focused on an overabundance of staple grains like rice, wheat and maize, rather than producing a broader range of more diverse and healthier foods, like fruits, nuts and vegetables.   Meanwhile, highly processed foods are available, cheap and intensively marketed; their sales are still high in high-income countries and growing fast in upper-middle- and lower-middle-income countries.   The climate emergency makes it critical to rethink food systems. And this presents an opportunity to shift to approaches ensuring that healthy and sustainably produced food is the most accessible, affordable and desirable choice for all.   These approaches must amplify the voices of marginalised groups and address the true cost of food to the environment, as well as to human health. Likewise, they must work both within specific contexts and across sectors to address all elements of the food system.   Second, we must address nutrition inequities in health systems. Malnutrition in all its forms has become the leading cause of ill health and death, and the rapid rise of diet-related NCDs is putting an intolerable strain on health systems. Yet, most people cannot access or afford quality nutrition care for prevention or treatment.   Worldwide, only about one-quarter of the 16.6 million children under 5 years of age with severe acute malnutrition received treatment in 2017, highlighting the urgent need to address this unacceptable burden.   Nutrition actions represent only a tiny portion of national health budgets, although they can be highly cost-effective and can reduce healthcare spending in the long term.   These are largely focused on undernutrition and are rarely delivered by skilled nutrition professionals. At the same time, health records and checks are not optimised to screen, monitor and treat malnutrition, such as through assessments of diet quality and food security.   Global commitment to universal health coverage is an opportunity to integrate nutrition care fully into health systems. Essential nutrition services - preventive and curative - should be universally available to all, with a focus on those who need it most.   Strong governance and coordination across sectors is key to building functional and resilient health systems. Mainstreaming and scaling up nutrition care within health systems would save lives and reduce staggering healthcare spending.   Only by tackling injustices in food and health systems will we achieve the transformations needed to end malnutrition in all its forms.   The intensified drive needed to meet global targets and end malnutrition is the collective responsibility of all sectors and countries. Domestic funding by country governments is crucial to ensure sustained improvements. At the same time, the international donor community has a duty to step up where governments lack the resources to respond effectively.   So far, investments have focused on addressing undernutrition. We have seen some success here, as rates of stunting are gradually decreasing over time. In contrast, overweight and obesity are rapidly increasing. The funding gap to address overweight, obesity and other diet-related NCDs is growing too. Countries have to be equipped to fight both sides of malnutrition at the same time.   We need to examine investments in nutrition through an equity lens. Investments must respond to need, and volumes of financing should be proportionate to the burden. We should proactively develop new financing mechanisms that can complement existing sources.   Nutrition inequalities exist across countries as well as within communities. Therefore, decisions on resource allocation by need should be informed by granular data at the subnational level, through evidence-based and cost-effective solutions. Coordination is essential to prioritise equitable nutrition investments.   Directing resources and programmes to communities and people most affected would enable faster, more equitable progress towards ending malnutrition.   Food is an important global issue - crucial to health, equity, sustainability, economies and livelihoods. Increased global recognition that governments, businesses and civil society are accountable for healthier and more equitable food and health systems provides an opportunity for us to invest in nutrition to preserve our future.   We urge leaders to prioritise action to ensure that all people, particularly those most affected by malnutrition, have unhindered access to healthy and affordable food, and to quality nutrition care. Governments must work with stakeholders across sectors to overcome the inequities holding back progress to end malnutrition.   To drive the transformative change needed to achieve nutrition equity, and end malnutrition in all its forms, we must focus on three key areas: food systems, health systems and financing.   Malnutrition in all its forms has become the leading cause of poor health and death, and the rapid rise of diet-related chronic diseases is putting an immense strain on health systems. But despite this assessment, nutrition actions only represent a minuscule portion of national health budgets although they can be highly cost-effective and cost-saving solutions.   To ensure that healthy and sustainably produced food is the most accessible, affordable and desirable choice for all, sectors must work together to mainstream nutrition into all elements of the food system including:   Implementing strong regulatory and policy frameworks to support healthier diets for all at country and community level and across sectors, from production to consumption. Optimise agricultural subsidies and increase public investment for producing a broader range of more diverse and healthier foods. Provide support for public transport schemes and shorter supply chains for fresh-food delivery products, particularly to the most nutritionally disadvantaged or harder-to-reach groups.   Implement, monitor and evaluate evidence-based food policies to support healthy, sustainable and equitable diets. Hold the food industry accountable for producing and marketing healthier and more sustainable food products through strengthened mechanisms.   Increase domestic financing to respond to the needs of communities most affected by malnutrition - including undernutrition, as well as overweight, obesity and other diet-related NCDs.   Increase international nutrition financing and coordination, targeting populations most in need - especially in fragile and conflict-affected countries and in those with limited possibility for domestic resource mobilisation.   Establish an international system of governance and accountability to address power imbalances in the food and health system and hold to account those responsible for creating inequities in food and health systems.   To save lives and cut healthcare costs, sectors must work in collaboration to mainstream nutrition as a basic health service.   We need to act now. Meeting the global nutrition targets would enable healthier, happier lives for all.   http://globalnutritionreport.org/reports/2020-global-nutrition-report/ Visit the related web page
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