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	As millions face hunger, women at risk as they eat last and least by CARE International   The coronavirus pandemic could nearly double the number of acutely food insecure people to more than 270 million by the end of 2020, the United Nations said this week, with famine looming in parts of Yemen, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.   "There is a huge risk that millions of women and girls around the world are already going hungry," Sarah Fuhrman, a humanitarian policy specialist with CARE.   "Everything we know about food security and who goes hungry indicates that women and girls are always at a particular risk for being the ones to eat last and the ones to eat least."   Women and girls are facing a double burden amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said CARE, with women's disproportionate job losses meaning many struggle to provide for their households, while social norms often dictate they should feed men and boys first.   CARE is calling for more funding to tackle COVID-19's impacts, as well as specific efforts to protect women and girls by ensuring they are involved in decision-making and programmes target their needs.   "If we don't have women and girls involved in telling us what's wrong and how to fix it, we are never going to get it right," said Fuhrman.   “The number of people experiencing serious food insecurity is projected to double over the course of 2020,” says CARE USA President & CEO Michelle Nunn. “Our report provides evidence on how profoundly the contraction of food and resources is impacting the 2 billion people living in fragile areas affected by armed conflict around the world.”   The report further reveals how conflict heightens food insecurity and causes the barriers to food production and processing due to violence destroying crops, livestock and essential infrastructure.   Conflict zones also have decreased accessibility so people and goods are unable to reach markets, causing food prices to skyrocket due to diminishing supply.   “Girls and women living with hunger and conflict are more likely to experience violence, transactional sex, and early and forced marriage. They are more likely to have their education interrupted and less likely to be able to resume their schooling,” says Nunn. “If we are going to prevent famine, national governments, non-profits, and the humanitarian sector must work together to address both the causes of conflict and food insecurity, as well as the ways in which women and girls are uniquely affected.”   CARE is calling on the U.S. government to provide at least $20 billion in further supplemental funding to respond to COVID-19 internationally to address food insecurity and other pandemic-related vulnerabilities.   * CARE report: “Sometimes We Don’t Even Eat- How Conflict and COVID-19 Are Pushing Millions of People to the Brink”: http://bit.ly/3lNcMk7   http://reliefweb.int/report/world/don-t-leave-them-behind-global-food-policies-continue-fail-women http://www.care.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Sometimes-We-Dont-Even-Eat-How-Conflict-and-COVID-19-Are-Pushing-Millions-of-People-to-the-Brink.pdf http://www.care.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Left-Out-and-Left-Behind.pdf Visit the related web page
	Women farmers at risk from Covid-19 food crisis by ActionAid International   Oct. 2020   Women already on the frontlines of the climate crisis, are bearing the brunt of rising hunger due to Covid-19 as they skip meals so that their children can eat and face rising levels of gender-based violence.   Early findings from ActionAid research into how measures to control Covid-19 are affecting the lives of women smallholder farmers across 14 countries in Africa and Asia, show how market closures, travel restrictions and soaring food prices are negatively affecting rural communities and jeopardising the next planting season.   Catherine Gutundu, ActionAid’s head of resilient livelihoods and climate justice, says:   “Around the world, Covid-19 has left women farmers indebted and hungry. Many of them now can't afford to plant for the next season. A dangerous spiral of increasing hunger and poverty could set in unless governments urgently increase their support to family farmers now.”   ActionAid is calling on governments to prioritise investment in sustainable, climate-resilient local food systems as part of Covid-19 recovery plans.   The summary report, based on a survey of 190 women farmers and local leaders in September, finds:   Covid-19 related market closures and lockdowns have severely affected earnings and food security. 83% of women farmers reported a loss of livelihoods during the pandemic, with 65% saying they are experiencing food shortages.   More than half (55%) of women said their unpaid care and domestic work has increased during the pandemic.   Women are prioritising their children’s needs over their own, many reported skipping meals or eating smaller portions, so their families have enough to eat. 58% of women said members of their household skipped meals during lockdown.   More than half (52%) of respondents said there has been an increase in gender-based violence.   Women said there had been an increase in men forcefully taking money from their wives, rising incidents of police harassing women and girls, and difficulties reporting cases of violence to relevant authorities. 64% of women said lockdown had made women and girls more susceptible to abuse and exploitation.   Women farmers report rising hunger and increasing violence:   Speaking about the violence facing women in her community, Yandeh Gissey, a smallholder farmer from Upper Niumi in The Gambia, says: “We are witnessing physical abuse to women and girls by men.. Especially where the women used to provide for the family and now they cannot, the husband is always violent.”   In Malawi, Alinafe Nkhoma, a smallholder farmer in Phalombe district has struggled to find enough, nutritious food for her family since losing her livelihood to Cyclone Idai destroyed her farmland in 2019. This year, her harvest was affected by drought and now the global pandemic has further affected her ability to sell her produce.   To survive and feed her family, she walks for four hours to gather Mikawa, a wild poisonous tuber, which has to be boiled for six hours before being safe to eat.   “Due to hunger in the area, the scramble for the wild tubers has become high,” she says. “On a daily basis there about 100 families in the mountains digging for tubers and one has to count themselves lucky if they find the tubers in good time.”   On World Food Day, ActionAid is calling on governments to bailout women farmers ahead of the next planting season to avert a Covid-induced food crisis. This should include:   Support for the next planting season: seed capital and access to interest-free loans and credit to allow women farmers to invest in farming activities.   Support to better adapt to the climate crisis and training in agroecological farming practices that build climate resilience and improve the productivity and fertility of soils.   Investment in roads and transport is needed to make them safer for women farmers to travel to access markets and urban areas to sell their produce.   Governments enforcing legal frameworks to protect the rights of farmers by monitoring markets, regulating food prices and keeping supply chains functioning.   Women farmers must have access to and control over their land and other natural resources, which in many countries is denied to them and fraught with legal and administrative barriers.   Governments must fund the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP), an innovative fund to support low-income countries’ agriculture introduced in the wake of the 2008 food crisis, to avoid another global hunger emergency. http://bit.ly/3lXmsIL   http://actionaid.org/news/2020/world-food-day-women-farmers-most-risk-covid-19-food-crisis http://actionaid.org/news/2020/new-actionaid-research-shows-stark-reality-covid-19s-impact-young-womens-lives-developing http://actionaid.org/publications/2021/invisible-women-gender-analysis-climate-induced-migration-south-asia Visit the related web page
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