COVID-19: Our hungriest and most vulnerable communities face “a crisis within a crisis”

Dominique Burgeon, Director of FAO's Emergency and Resilience Division, explained why the health crisis can be compounded by a hunger crisis, and how the Organization is gearing up to help most vulnerable communities which are less well-equipped to fend off the virus.

Which communities are most at risk?

As the number of infections in vulnerable countries grows, a "crisis within a crisis" could emerge, in which the health crisis will be compounded by a hunger crisis and other major problems to deal with, afterwards.

Even before COVID-19 hit, 113 million people were already struggling with severe acute food insecurity due to pre-existing shocks or crises. The vast majority live in rural areas, and depend on agricultural production. If they become ill or constrained by restrictions on movement or activity, they will be prevented from working their land. Moreover, vulnerable populations may be more likely to leave behind their livelihoods and move in search of assistance with the unintended consequence of potentially further spreading the virus and possibly encountering heightened social tensions.

There are some similarities with the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, which disrupted agricultural market supply chains. So the lessons from it are clear: while health needs are an urgent and primary concern, livelihoods or food security aspects cannot be neglected. It is evident that more humane and strategically smarter strategy is to protect and sustain livelihoods now, rather than rebuild them after.

This situation can take place not only in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia. In Africa, FAO is also worried about the Sahel, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan. But no continent is immune: COVID-19 risks further exacerbating the impact of conflicts and natural disasters.

In addition, everybody realizes that this virus does not respect borders. If we beat it back in the developed world but allow it to go unchecked in less-resourced countries whose medical systems struggle to cope and where people are already weak from hunger and less able to withstand the disease, it will come back to haunt us all.

FAO’s response strategy

The aim is to prioritize countries already facing food crises, as per the Global Report on Food Crises. FAO’s work will adapt to the evolution of the pandemic, which may see rising needs in countries not currently in crisis but that are extremely vulnerable to a new shock.

Critical livelihood saving programs in countries coping with protracted crises or pre-existing high levels of food insecurity will be sustained and then scaled up. The UN system on 25 March launched a consolidated humanitarian appeal under which FAO asked donors for $110 million to protect the food security of vulnerable rural populations.

FAO will provide smallholder farmers and herders with seeds, tools, livestock feed and other inputs, along with animal health support, to improve household nutrition and diversify incomes. Similar activities will be undertaken in camps for refugees and the displaced.

Social protection systems will be scaled up, especially in hard-to-reach rural areas. One key way to stabilize families' purchasing power will be through injections of cash, so they can meet critical household needs without selling off their assets.

FAO country offices are consulting with local partners who could help with adapting flexible contractual arrangements to combine logistics channels for aid delivery and minimize exposure of staff and beneficiaries. FAO is also looking at advance procurement of inputs (such as seeds, tools) and pre-positioning, combining input packages to cover longer-term needs, and increasing storage and logistics capacities.