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COVID-19 pandemic drives global increase in humanitarian food assistance needs
by Famine Early Warning Systems Network, agencies
 
Oct. 2020
 
In April, WFP estimated that 270 million people will become acutely food insecure in the countries of WFP presence, by the end of 2020 if no action is taken, an 82 percent increase compared to the number of acutely food insecure pre-COVID. This projection has not changed six months into the crisis.
 
The pandemic is having and will continue to have a huge and lasting negative effect on the global economy; 2020 and 2021 will be lost years in terms of growth, and the global economy is expected to recover to pre-coronavirus levels only in 2022. This global forecast, however, masks large disparities between countries.
 
A country’s ability to deploy the policy response needed to prevent a devastating human toll and long-lasting impact on livelihoods depends critically on debt relief, grants, and concessional financing from the international community.
 
Island economies that rely heavily on tourism and economies that are driven by oil exports are also likely to face long-lasting challenges.
 
The impact of economic decline on food security and nutrition in many low- and middle-income countries will likely be severe and protracted through 2021 and possibly beyond.
 
Yet again, it is the poorer countries and the most vulnerable households that are disproportionally affected as many find their debt burdens unpayable at a time when they are facing the quadruple blow of a global recession, weaker currencies, higher interest costs and a drop in remittances sent home from workers in foreign nations.
 
In many regions, migrant labourers are returning to their home countries due to loss of employment. Many are taking enormous risks along migration routes, resulting in hundreds of thousands of migrants stranded at border areas, confined in institutional quarantine and isolation facilities or abandoned in perilous situations by smugglers.
 
Typically, migrants are also excluded from national social safety nets even when those exist, which makes them especially vulnerable. Examples of these situations are West African migrants stranded in desert areas near the borders with Algeria and Libya, extremely vulnerable migrants in detention centres in Libya, and Horn of Africa migrants stranded in Yemen.
 
Migrants have also seen their condition worsen in the Latin America and the Caribbean region where the second biggest migration crisis is still unfolding. At present out of the estimated 3 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, 2.3 million are food insecure (WFP survey August 2020).
 
The steep decline towards greater vulnerability has been particularly acute among workers who do not have the option of working from home.
 
Income losses also appear to have been uneven across genders, with women among lower-income groups bearing a larger brunt of the impact in some countries.
 
Of the approximately 2 billion informally employed workers worldwide, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates close to 80 percent have been significantly affected. Prospects of long-lasting negative consequences for livelihoods, job security, and inequality have grown more daunting.
 
Pre-existing gender gaps and inequalities are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, whose impact on women and girls is disproportionately high. Women make up the larger proportion of people living in poverty, and tend to hold lower paying, less secure jobs.
 
With the pandemic, formal employment and informal work opportunities for women have significantly declined, while their care burden (especially childcare and that of elderly people) has increased due to the effects of lockdowns and movement restrictions. Gender-based violence is reported to have increased exponentially during lockdowns, while protection, support to survivors, and health services including reproductive health were reduced or became harder to access.
 
The economic consequences of the crisis are having a direct impact on people’s ability to access food. The cost of a basic food basket increased by more than 10 percent on top of reduced incomes in twenty countries during the second quarter compared to the first in 2020, namely Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan and Thailand.
 
Food prices are exceptionally high in many countries such as Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Zimbabwe.
 
As the COVID-19 economic fallout continues to bite, the political and security implications of the pandemic are also surfacing along with the potential to aggravate food insecurity.
 
The pandemic and impact of measures to control its spread are placing a severe strain on political stability in a wide array of countries, particularly where governments are fragile, in transition, or with peace talks or agreements on-going.
 
Constitutional reforms have been disrupted and electoral processes affected with elections postponed in tens of countries this year because of the pandemic.In several countries, the volatility raised political tensions and potential for destabilisation.
 
According to UNHCR, some 80 percent of protection clusters report escalating conflict and/or political instability since the beginning of the pandemic. This is triggering new displacements, reducing safe access to vital health and sanitation services and impeding lifesaving protection and humanitarian services.
 
In conflict-affected areas, the pandemic is an added drain on the resources and capacity of governments. This is also the case with international peacekeeping efforts. This environment is allowing non-state armed groups, criminals and violent extremists to exploit security gaps and operate more freely, leading to upticks in violence, displacements, market disruptions and access constraints.
 
An example of this is the escalation of violence in the region of Cabo Delgado in Northern Mozambique and Burkina Faso.
 
In addition, the security of humanitarian staff is a growing concern. The Islamic State has recently condoned the targeting of humanitarians, while other armed groups and criminals have demonstrated their intent to target personnel, effectively hampering humanitarian delivery.
 
Although conflict and insecurity remain the main drivers of hunger, the added dimension of COVID-19 is exacerbating the ability of affected communities to cope.
 
A drastic reduction of livelihood opportunities, employment and income, in addition to natural hazards such as cyclones, hurricanes, flooding and pests are pushing communities further into desperate circumstances.
 
Restrictions on travel and movement of goods, quarantine measures and the corresponding economic fallout as a result of the pandemic are deepening the impact.
 
The latest Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) assessments show dramatic increases in acute food insecurity across the globe.
 
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone, nearly 22 million people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity.
 
Burkina Faso has seen a tripling in the number of people falling into acute food insecurity as compared to the same period in 2019.
 
In these countries as well as Yemen, South Sudan, the Sahel region of West Africa and northeastern Nigeria, COVID-19 has combined with conflict and climate shocks as a key driver of hunger.
 
The pandemic has ushered hunger into the lives of more urban populations while placing the vulnerable, such as refugees, war torn communities and those living at the sharp end of climate change at higher risk of starvation.
 
In Latin America, COVID-19 has caused the worst recession in a century. Based on a WFP assessment in August 2020, severe food insecurity had increased by 400 percent, rising from 4.3 million people in January to over 17 million in August 2020.
 
Emerging evidence from latest food security analyses and assessments show that COVID-19 has had a compounding effect on pre-existing vulnerabilities and stressors.
 
These developments are indicative of the challenges in coping with the consequences of the pandemic and underline the need for WFP and partners to step up and continue to respond at scale.
 
* WFP Global Response to COVID-19 report: http://reliefweb.int/report/world/wfp-global-response-covid-19-september-2020 http://www.wfp.org/publications/covid-19-situation-reports http://www.wfp.org/emergencies http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/ http://www.rescue.org/article/top-10-crises-world-should-be-watching-2021 http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2020/12/24/Famine-food-insecurity-climate-change http://news.un.org/en/news/topic/humanitarian-aid http://www.unocha.org/media-centre/news-updates
 
June 2020
 
COVID-19 pandemic drives global increase in humanitarian food assistance needs
 
COVID-19 containment measures have varied over the past month as governments balance mitigating the virus’ spread with limiting the negative economic and social effects of protracted lockdowns. These measures, including border restrictions, limit household access to key income generating activities and contribute to atypical price volatility in some areas. The broad trend has been towards easing restrictions, although the global economic contraction continues to limit labor and self-employment opportunities.
 
Due to this decline in income among poor households, as well as the persistence of other drivers of acute food insecurity, including conflict and weather shocks, FEWS NET estimates over 100 million people will be in need of humanitarian food assistance in 2020 across its 29 presence and remotely monitored countries, in line with FEWS NET’s estimate in May 2020. This represents a roughly 25 percent increase relative to anticipated needs prior to the pandemic.
 
Current and anticipated impacts on food availability and access
 
The direct impacts of COVID-19 are likely negatively affecting some poor households’ food security because infected households may face limited ability to engage in productive activities while sick or being quarantined. This, coupled with possible increased expenditure on health, is likely to result in fewer resources available to purchase food among infected households.
 
The most extensive impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on acute food insecurity, though, continue to be the indirect ones, notably the loss of income-earning opportunities.
 
As many countries have eased at least some containment measures over the past month, movement and the related engagement in casual labor and self-employment has increased in several areas, including parts of East Africa and Afghanistan.
 
However, the COVID-19-related measures that do remain in place, including border closures that limit labor migration and restrictions on livestock markets, continue to slow trade flows and limit income-generating activities.
 
Furthermore, global economic decline is driving lower demand for many services that generate employment opportunities for poor households. Consequently, while opportunities for earning cash have increased somewhat, compared to April when more stringent lockdown measures were in place, poor households’ capacity to engage fully in labor and self-employment activities is still more limited than it was in early 2020.
 
Of particular concern are restrictions on the movement of agricultural labor, both within and across countries. Migratory labor constitutes a significant portion of annual cash income for many poor households, and the loss of this income increases their risk of acute food insecurity.
 
Lower flows of migratory agricultural labor — which are being observed in some areas of East Africa (Ethiopia and South Sudan to Sudan) and West Africa (Niger/Nigeria) during the main cultivation period — also limits production potential in typically surplus-producing areas where this labor is crucial, raising concerns about the potential impact on the upcoming September/October harvest.
 
Furthermore, given the ongoing movement restrictions and related higher transportation costs, farmers in several areas are reporting selling their crops closer to their farm gate and at lower prices. These lower prices translate into potential gaps in annual income for poorer households.
 
For better-off households, reduced income from crop sales may limit their capacity to hire poor households as seasonal agricultural laborers, further reducing poor households’ income, while simultaneously limiting production potential.
 
According to available information, remittances, a key source of income for many households in the countries that FEWS NET monitors, declined in April and May relative to both early 2020 and the same time last year. In Guatemala and El Salvador, monthly remittances increased in May after a sharp decline in April, although transfers in both months were lower than the same months in 2019 and the five-year average.
 
Global food commodity supply chains continue to operate at near-normal levels, and in most of FEWS NET’s countries, staple food prices in May followed seasonal trends with no significant deviations from April prices. Nevertheless, staple food prices remain higher than average in several countries due mostly to panic buying and trade slowdowns.
 
Notable examples include higher prices for wheat and pulses in Afghanistan and imported staple foods in West Africa. Reductions in export earnings across FEWS NET-monitored countries, leading to local currency depreciation in countries likes Nigeria and DRC, remain of high concern.
 
In Haiti, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and South Sudan, where currencies were already depreciating on the parallel market, COVID-19 is reinforcing this downward trend. This is expected to put steady upward pressure on the prices of imported staple foods and local substitutes in these countries in the coming months. Overall, with lower income and somewhat higher staple food prices, poor households’ purchasing capacity is likely to remain below normal in 2020.
 
Many governments and humanitarian partners have distributed high levels of assistance over the past two months. This assistance is expected to meet at least part of the increased need in several areas, including across much of Central America and in city centers of Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, among others.
 
However, the scale of need continues to exceed the assistance provided. The largest food insecure populations are in Yemen, South Sudan, DRC, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan.
 
While COVID-19 containment measures have eased in several countries, millions of households continue to face reduced income. Across the 29 countries monitored by FEWS NET, 100 million people are likely to face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse outcomes and need urgent humanitarian food assistance in 2020, an approximate 25 percent increase in food assistance needs compared to needs in 2019 and prior to the pandemic.
 
Greater severity of acute food insecurity is also likely among some, as there were populations already in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) who now face additional reductions in income.
 
FEWS NET also provides a peak global needs estimates for an additional 17 countries that it does not directly monitor. The combined estimated peak global needs for these 46 countries in 2020 is 113 million people.
 
http://fews.net/fr/global/alert/june-29-2020 http://fews.net/fr/global/alert/april-27-2020 http://bit.ly/2YhTPNy


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Responses to COVID-19 are failing people in poverty
by Philip Alston, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Hilal Elver
UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
 
Sep. 2020
 
COVID-19: UN poverty expert says social protection measures “full of holes”, urges global rethink
 
The UN’s independent expert on extreme poverty said in a report published today that while governments have adopted more than 1,400 social protection measures since the outbreak of COVID-19 they were largely insufficient, and warned the worst impacts on poverty were yet to come.
 
“The social safety nets put into place are full of holes,” said Olivier De Schutter, calling on world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York to strengthen measures to help the poor. “These current measures are generally short-term, the funding is insufficient, and many people will inevitably fall between the cracks.”
 
The economic downturn resulting from the pandemic is unprecedented in times of peace since the Great Depression, he said, adding another 176 million people could fall into poverty when using a poverty baseline of 3.20 USD/day. This is equivalent to an increase in the poverty rate of 2.3 percentage points compared to a no-COVID-19 scenario.
 
World Bank data covering 113 countries show that US$589bn have been pledged for social protection, representing about 0.4 percent of the world’s GDP. However, the expert’s report says those initiatives will fail to prevent people falling into poverty. Many of the poorest people are excluded from the social protection schemes that are meant to support them.
 
“Many schemes require forms to be completed online and exclude large groups of the population who have no internet access or who have only weak digital literacy,” De Schutter said.
 
“Some schemes impose conditions impossible to fulfil for people in precarious forms of employment or without a permanent address. Migrants, especially undocumented migrants, often are not covered. And although some schemes have been designed to cover workers in the informal sector and in precarious forms of employment, many do not.”
 
There are 1.6 billion informal workers and 0.4 billion precarious workers worldwide, representing 61 percent of the global workforce.
 
De Schutter said most of the programmes were now being phased out, or can only be renewed through parliamentary processes with uncertain outcomes. “Families in poverty have by now used up whatever reserves they had, and sold their assets,” he said. “The worst impacts of the crisis on poverty are still to come.”
 
Even where programs are still in place, the allowances often are grossly insufficient to guarantee a decent standard of living.
 
The independent expert called upon world leaders to seize the moment, by calling for the establishment of strong social protection floors guided by human rights principles, to make them more effective in eradicating poverty and in reducing inequalities.
 
http://srpoverty.org/2020/09/11/special-rapporteur-launches-new-report-on-poverty-in-a-covid-stricken-world/ http://bit.ly/30H7Mow http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/covid19.pdf
 
Apr. 2020
 
Many Governments responses to COVID-19 have had devastating effects on people in poverty, says the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston. 'Despite often far-reaching policy reversals and huge financial support packages, the most vulnerable have been short-changed or excluded'.
 
'The policies of many States reflect a social Darwinism philosophy that prioritises the economic interests of the wealthiest, while doing little for those who are hard at work providing essential services or unable to support themselves', Alston said.
 
COVID-19 could push more than half a billion additional people into poverty, he warned. The International Labour Organization estimates that the equivalent of almost 200 million full-time jobs will disappear in the coming months, while lost income could total US$3.4 trillion this year.
 
'This is a crisis that disproportionately affects poor people, who are more likely to have health complications, live in crowded housing, lack the resources to stay at home for long periods, and work low-paid jobs that force them to choose between risking their health or losing their income', Alston said.
 
'In a moral failing of epic proportions, most States are doing all too little to protect those most vulnerable to this pandemic.
 
Governments have shut down entire countries without making even minimal efforts to ensure people can get by', Alston said. 'Many in poverty live day to day, with no savings or surplus food. And of course, homeless people cannot simply stay home'.
 
In China, which he visited in 2016 and then presented a report to the Human Rights Council, the quarantine of 60 million people effectively halted social services, leaving those in poverty to fend for themselves.
 
'After pushing millions inside without a plan, some governments have responded with gratuitous and counter-productive violence to low-income people forced to leave their homes to survive', the Special Rapporteur said.
 
While some States have taken important initiatives such as direct cash payments, suspension of evictions and coverage of furloughed employees salaries, for the most part support measures have been utterly inadequate and the most vulnerable populations have been neglected.
 
'This is cruel, inhumane and self-defeating, since it forces them to continue working in unsafe conditions, putting everyone's health at risk'.
 
In the United States, which Alston assessed in a 2018 report to the Human Rights Council, the Government relief package temporarily expanded unemployment programmes but excluded taxpaying undocumented and informal workers.
 
Despite the availability of alternative options, many States continue to detain vulnerable people in jails, prisons and immigration detention centers in crowded conditions and without adequate healthcare. For some, this will be a death sentence.
 
COVID-19 has also exposed dramatic inequalities among countries.
 
'While some States see the curve flattening, the coronavirus is poised to wreak havoc in poorer countries. Wealthy States should direct support to governments that need it, suspend or cancel foreign debt, and stop monopolising medical equipment and coronavirus tests', Alston said.
 
'The assault on the World Health Organization, at a time when multilateral cooperation is crucial, is as unjustified as it is unconscionable, and is totally self-defeating', he added.
 
'This pandemic has exposed the bankruptcy of social support systems in many countries'. Alston said. 'While some governments have embraced far-ranging measures previously dismissed as unrealistic, most programs have been short-term, stop-gap measures that merely buy time rather than address the immense challenges that will continue well into the future.
 
Now is the time for deep structural reforms that will protect populations as a whole and will build resilience in the face of an uncertain future', he added.
 
http://bit.ly/2S0fFkL http://srpoverty.org/press-releases/
 
Responses to COVID-19 crisis: UN expert urges more government spending targeting inequality, not big business
 
States must dramatically increase spending that targets inequalities and poverty caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and not just bail out corporations, banks and investors without human rights or social conditions attached, a UN expert said today.
 
In a letter to Governments and international financial institutions, the UN Independent Expert on debt and human rights said public investments should also aim at reaching small and mid-size enterprises, creating long-term sustainable employment, prioritising human rights and promoting a greener economy.
 
'Some stakeholders promote an approach consisting in 'saving the economy' at any costs, including by putting the health and lives of the majority of their populations at stake. This approach is often accompanied by a lack of serious efforts to reduce inequalities. In these terms, 'saving the economy' means prioritising the benefit of a certain elite', the Expert stated.
 
Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky said private debt payments should be suspended for individuals financially crippled by the health crisis. During this period, these loans should not bear interest.
 
'Measures including unconditional cash transfers to maintain an adequate standard of living, provision of emergency shelters, a halt in evictions and cuts in the provision of electricity and water services must be considered immediately', the expert said.
 
'Lessons learnt from the 2008-9 financial crisis give us a head-start for tackling current and future challenges. We know too well how this period saw a rise in world hunger, unemployment, a high increase in evictions, foreclosures, homelessness, entrenched inequalities and pushed too many into poverty'.
 
Bohoslavsky called for an immediate moratorium on sovereign debt repayment for the poorest and debt-distressed countries. 'Debt restructuring and reliefs should be adopted by all creditors in order to ensure not only financial but also health and social sustainability of the debts. The case for state of necessity has never been so strong'.
 
States should also invest in nutrition, housing, education sectors and local small-scale environmentally sustainable farming and agricultural production.
 
This approach does not prevent governments from operating as payers of last resort to cover companies costs and pay salaries during the crisis, if needed. But this policy would only be justified if it is implemented to avoid retrogression in economic and social human rights.
 
The independent expert said States could impose a one-off wealth tax but they should also undertake a more ambitious reform programme.
 
'This is the right time to seriously engage in structural reforms for redistributive justice including progressive taxation reforms, where millionaires and billionaires and large corporate conglomerates are requested to contribute to the society in a proportional measure to their fortunes', Bohoslavsky said. http://bit.ly/3awSNzA
 
Mar. 2020
 
Private debts: too often cause and consequence of human rights violations
 
Contracting individuals and households private debt must not be used as a substitute to States human rights duties and to make up for the States colossal failures to ensure economic, social and cultural rights for all, said a UN expert in a report presented to the Human Rights Council today.
 
As housing, health, education and even justice are not considered as rights but as goods that can be bought, too many people have no choice but to resort to debt to access these rights, both in developing and developed countries, the expert said.
 
Low wages, poverty and inequality - exacerbated by privatization, austerity measures and labour market flexibilization push millions of people into debt.
 
'I observed that, while contracting debt is not a problem per se, private debt can nevertheless be both a cause and a consequence of human rights violations', said Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, the UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights.
 
His report sheds light on a number of very concerning practices including debt bond, hospital detention for non-payment of medical bills and abusive lending and collection practices.
 
In addition, the financial industry technology is increasingly and aggressively facilitating credit through digital means, including mobile application, which leads to over-borrowing. These practices remain highly unregulated.
 
Reminding that high levels of household debts have been associated with macroeconomic instability and financial crises, the UN expert provided a number of recommendations to States to protect individual debtors human rights.
 
In particular, Bohoslavsky called on States to regulate and monitor all lending activities, formal and informal, and to adopt legislation that prohibits the enforcement of debts where there is evidence of misrepresentation, fraud, miss-selling, coercion, unfair terms, harassment or other abusive practices by lenders. http://undocs.org/A/HRC/43/45
 
Mar. 2020
 
Critical perspectives on food systems, food crises and the future of the Right to Food - Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver.
 
This report marks the close of the Special Rapporteur's mandate and serves as her final presentation to the Human Rights Council. Over the past six years, Hilal Elver has gained a unique insight into the global state of the right to food. Such knowledge has led her to conclude that, despite the Sustainable Development Goal of 'zero hunger' and malnutrition by 2030, the realization of the right to food remains a distant, if not impossible, reality for far too many.
 
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur offers a critical perspective on the trends that have led to this reality and a review of new developments that have the potential to change the status quo. She also looks to the future, highlighting the roles and responsibilities of key players in advancing the right to food. The Special Rapporteur intends for the report to provide a foundation for those who wish to guarantee a world free from hunger and malnutrition for the next generation: http://undocs.org/A/HRC/43/44
 
* Access more commentary and advice from UN Special Procedure holders - human rights experts independent from any govt or organization via the link below.


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