World Development[JOURNAL]
Sun
200 papers
Corrigendum to "Development of the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)" [World Development 122 (2019) 675-692].
Malapit H, Quisumbing A, Meinzen-Dick R … +7 more , Seymour G, Martinez EM, Heckert J, Rubin D, Vaz A, Yount KM, Gender Agriculture Assets Project Phase 2 (GAAP2) Study Team
World Dev · 2020 Dec · PMID 33273753 · Full text
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.06.018.].
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.06.018.].
Geography of public service delivery in rural Ethiopia.
Abate GT, Dereje M, Hirvonen K … +1 more , Minten B
World Dev · 2020 Dec · PMID 33273752 · Full text
Remote areas are often characterized by lower welfare outcomes due to economic disadvantages and higher transaction costs for trade. But their poorer situation may also be linked to worse public service delivery. Relying...
Remote areas are often characterized by lower welfare outcomes due to economic disadvantages and higher transaction costs for trade. But their poorer situation may also be linked to worse public service delivery. Relying on large household surveys in rural Ethiopia, we explore this by assessing the association of two measures of remoteness - (1) the distance of service centers to district capitals and (2) the distance of households to service centers (the last mile) - with public service delivery in agriculture and health sectors. In the agriculture sector, we document statistically significant and economically meaningful associations between exposure to agriculture extension and the two measures of remoteness. For health extension, only the last mile matters. These differences between the two sectors could be due to the fact that more remote villages tend to have fewer agriculture extension workers who also put in fewer hours than their peers in more connected areas. This does not apply in the health sector. These findings provide valuable inputs for policymakers aiming to improve inclusiveness in poor rural areas.
Localising Public Health: Refugee-led organisations as first and last responders in COVID-19.
Betts A, Easton-Calabria E, Pincock K
World Dev · 2021 Mar · PMID 33250552 · Full text
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing socioeconomic impact on already marginalised refugee communities demonstrate both the need for, and lack of, localisation in humanitarian and development responses. Our research with org...
The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing socioeconomic impact on already marginalised refugee communities demonstrate both the need for, and lack of, localisation in humanitarian and development responses. Our research with organisations founded and led by refugees, termed here refugee-led organisations (RLOs), in camps and cities in Kenya and Uganda shows their potential to be an asset in the response to COVID-19 and in contributing to more effective and participatory forms of humanitarian assistance. In this research note we draw on pre-pandemic research with around 80 RLOs and follow-up research with 15 in Uganda and Kenya who are actively responding to the pandemic and its effects. We identify five key areas in which refugees are or could be involved as responders to COVID-19 and other pandemics: providing public information, supplementing capacity gaps, healthcare delivery, shaping social norms, and virus tracking and contact tracing. Our research during COVID-19 shows how RLOs have pivoted their existing service provision to fill assistance gaps, including in areas directly related to public health. As the humanitarian system searches for ways to implement remote and participatory approaches to refugee assistance, RLOs offer great potential, if mechanisms can be found to identify those that are effective, provide them with funding, and build their capacities.
COVID-19 and conflict.
Bloem JR, Salemi C
World Dev · 2021 Apr · PMID 33199938 · Full text
What does the threat of and the policy response to the coronavirus pandemic mean for inter-group conflict worldwide? We examine time series trends for different types of conflict and evaluate discernible changes taking p...
What does the threat of and the policy response to the coronavirus pandemic mean for inter-group conflict worldwide? We examine time series trends for different types of conflict and evaluate discernible changes taking place as global awareness of COVID-19 spread. At the country level, we examine changes in trends following policy responses, such as lockdowns, curfews, or ceasefires. We specifically examine violent conflict events (e.g., battles, remote violence and bombings, and violence against civilians) as well as civil demonstrations (e.g., protests and riots) using data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project. Globally we see a relatively short-term decline in conflict, mostly driven by a sharp decrease in protest events, that has since recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Critical heterogeneity at the country level, however, persists. Finally, context-specific details challenge robust causal inference identifying the specific relationship between policy responses and conflict.
Remote-learning, time-use, and mental health of Ecuadorian high-school students during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Asanov I, Flores F, McKenzie D … +2 more , Mensmann M, Schulte M
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33110286 · Full text
The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools around the world, forcing school systems and students to quickly attempt remote learning. We conducted a rapid response phone survey of over 1500 high school students aged 14 to 1...
The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools around the world, forcing school systems and students to quickly attempt remote learning. We conducted a rapid response phone survey of over 1500 high school students aged 14 to 18 in Ecuador to learn how students spend their time during the period of quarantine, examine their access to remote learning, and measure their mental health status. We find 59 percent of students have both an internet connection at home and a computer or tablet, 74 percent are engaging in some online or telelearning, and 86 percent have done some schoolwork on the last weekday. Detailed time-use data show most students have established similar daily routines around education, although gender and wealth differences emerge in time spent working and on household tasks. Closure of schools and social isolation are the two main problems students say they face, and while the majority are mostly happy, 16 percent have mental health scores that indicate depression.
COVID-19 response needs to broaden financial inclusion to curb the rise in poverty.
Gutiérrez-Romero R, Ahamed M
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33110285 · Full text
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic risks wiping out years of progress made in reducing global poverty. In this paper, we explore to what extent financial inclusion could help mitigate the increase in poverty using cross-count...
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic risks wiping out years of progress made in reducing global poverty. In this paper, we explore to what extent financial inclusion could help mitigate the increase in poverty using cross-country data across 79 low- and lower-middle-income countries. Unlike other recent cross-country studies, we show that financial inclusion, particularly financial outreach, is a key driver of poverty reduction in these countries. This effect is not direct, but indirect, by mitigating the detrimental effect that inequality has on poverty. Our findings are consistent across all the different measures of poverty used and robust to instrumental variables. Our forecasts suggest that by 2021 the world's population living on less than $5.50 dollars a day would increase by 231 million people, of which nearly 107.8 million people would be pushed into extreme poverty living on less than $1.90 per day. However, urgent improvements in financial inclusion could substantially reduce the impact on poverty.
Why is the number of COVID-19 cases lower than expected in Sub-Saharan Africa? A cross-sectional analysis of the role of demographic and geographic factors.
Nguimkeu P, Tadadjeu S
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33106726 · Full text
Unlike initially predicted by WHO, the severity of the novel coronavirus pandemic has remained relatively low in Sub-Saharan Africa, more than two months after the first confirmed cases were identified. In this paper, we...
Unlike initially predicted by WHO, the severity of the novel coronavirus pandemic has remained relatively low in Sub-Saharan Africa, more than two months after the first confirmed cases were identified. In this paper, we analyze the extent to which demographic and geographic factors associated to the disease explain this phenomenon. We use publicly available data from a cross-section of 182 countries worldwide, and we employ a regression analysis that accounts for possible misreporting of COVID-19 cases, as well as a Ramsey-type specification that preserves degree of freedom. We found that proportion of population aged 65+, population density, and urbanization are significantly positively associated with high numbers of active infected cases, while mean temperature around the first quarter (January-March) is negatively associated to this COVID-19 outcome. These factors are those for which Africa has a comparative advantage. In contrast, factors for which Africa has a relative disadvantage, such as income and quality of health care infrastructure, are found to be insignificant predictors of the spread of the pandemic. These results hold even when accounting for possible underreporting, as well as differences in the duration of the epidemic in each country, as measured by the time elapsed since the first confirmed case occurred. We conclude that differences in demographic and geographic characteristics help understand the relatively low progression of the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the gap in the number of active cases between this region and the rest of the World. We also found, however, that this gap is insignificant beyond these factors, and is expected to narrow over time as the pandemic evolves. These results provide insights for relevant urban policies and kinds of development planning to consider in the fight against disease spreads of the coronavirus type.
Public support for development aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kobayashi Y, Heinrich T, Bryant KA
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33106725 · Full text
Global pandemics are a serious concern for developing countries, perhaps particularly when the same pandemic also affects donors of development aid. During crises at home, donors often cut aid, which would have grave ram...
Global pandemics are a serious concern for developing countries, perhaps particularly when the same pandemic also affects donors of development aid. During crises at home, donors often cut aid, which would have grave ramifications for developing countries with poor public health capacity during a time of increased demand for health care. Because the major donors are democracies, whether they renege on promises would depend intimately on how donor citizens respond to the specific crisis. We conduct two survey experiments with 887 U.S. residents to examine how the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic influences their attitudes toward aid. We demonstrate that people's concern about the impact of COVID-19 on their country's financial situation reduces their support for aid. If they think that aid can help curb the next wave of the disease by first alleviating its impact in developing countries, people become substantially more supportive of giving aid. In contrast, merely stressing how COVID-19 might ravage developing countries barely changes their aid attitudes. Our findings have implications for what to expect from donors during global pandemics as well as how advocates may prevent aid from being cut.
The local governance of COVID-19: Disease prevention and social security in rural India.
Dutta A, Fischer HW
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33106724 · Full text
Countries around the world have undertaken a wide range of strategies to halt the spread of COVID-19 and control the economic fallout left in its wake. Rural areas of developing countries pose particular difficulties for...
Countries around the world have undertaken a wide range of strategies to halt the spread of COVID-19 and control the economic fallout left in its wake. Rural areas of developing countries pose particular difficulties for developing and implementing effective responses owing to underdeveloped health infrastructure, uneven state capacity for infection control, and endemic poverty. This paper makes the case for the critical role of local governance in coordinating pandemic response by examining how state authorities are attempting to bridge the gap between the need for rapid, vigorous response to the pandemic and local realities in three Indian states - Rajasthan, Odisha, and Kerala. Through a combination of interviews with mid and low-level bureaucrats and a review of policy documents, we show how the urgency of COVID-19 response has galvanized new kinds of cross-sectoral and multi-scalar interaction between administrative units involved in coordinating responses, as local governments have assumed central responsibility in the implementation of disease control and social security mechanisms. Evidence from Kerala in particular suggests that the state's long term investment in democratic local government and arrangements for incorporating women within grassroots state functions (through its Kudumbashree program) has built a high degree of public trust and cooperation with state actors, while local authorities embrace an ethic of care in the implementation of state responses. These observations, from the early months of the pandemic in South Asia, can serve as a foundation for future studies of how existing institutional arrangements and their histories pattern the long-term success of disease control and livelihood support as the pandemic proceeds. Governance, we argue, will be as important to understanding the trajectory of COVID-19 impacts and recovery as biology, demography, and economy.
COVID-19: Large-scale collective action, government intervention, and the importance of trust.
Harring N, Jagers SC, Löfgren Å
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33100480 · Full text
In this article we apply a large-scale collective action framework on the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We compare the pandemic with other large-scale collective action problems - such as climate change, antimicrobial re...
In this article we apply a large-scale collective action framework on the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We compare the pandemic with other large-scale collective action problems - such as climate change, antimicrobial resistance and biodiversity loss - which are identified by the number of actors involved (the more actors, the larger the scale); the problem's complexity; and the spatial and temporal distance between the actors causing and being affected by the problem. The greater the extent of these characteristics, the larger the scale of the collective action problem and the smaller the probability of spontaneous collective action. We argue that by unpacking the social dilemma logic underlying the spread of the COVID-19 virus, we can better understand the great variation in policy responses worldwide, e.g., why some countries are adopting harsher policies and enforcing them, while others tend to rely more on recommendations. We claim that one key factor is trust and, more precisely, reciprocal trust, both horizontally among people and also vertically between people and their governments - and vice versa. Citizens must trust that the recommendations they receive from the public authorities are correct, that these are in their (or the collective's) best interest, and that most others will follow the recommendations. Simultaneously, government authorities must trust that their citizens will transform the recommendations into collective action. When this situation is present, we argue that governments enjoy a large degree of collective action capital, which potentially open up for a wider palette of policy options.
Towards a political economy of the COVID-19 crisis: Reflections on an agenda for research and action.
Cotula L
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33100479 · Full text
The spread of COVID-19 has raised difficult questions that interrogate the pandemic as a public health emergency, an economic crisis and a disruptor of consolidated governance forms. While addressing the public health em...
The spread of COVID-19 has raised difficult questions that interrogate the pandemic as a public health emergency, an economic crisis and a disruptor of consolidated governance forms. While addressing the public health emergency must be the main priority, we also need to track the ways in which the crisis is reconfiguring economic and political ordering and diverse actors are renegotiating relations in the exceptional circumstances the pandemic has created. These dimensions can have far-reaching implications in wide-ranging policy areas, both as the crisis unfolds and in the longer term. Based on a review of developments concerning land governance, this Viewpoint discusses continuities with longstanding patterns as well as ruptures and distinctive features that outline the initial contours of an agenda for research and action.
Post-pandemic transformations: How and why COVID-19 requires us to rethink development.
Leach M, MacGregor H, Scoones I … +1 more , Wilkinson A
World Dev · 2021 Feb · PMID 33100478 · Full text
COVID-19 is proving to be the long awaited 'big one': a pandemic capable of bringing societies and economies to their knees. There is an urgent need to examine how COVID-19 - as a health and development crisis - unfolded...
COVID-19 is proving to be the long awaited 'big one': a pandemic capable of bringing societies and economies to their knees. There is an urgent need to examine how COVID-19 - as a health and development crisis - unfolded the way it did it and to consider possibilities for post-pandemic transformations and for rethinking development more broadly. Drawing on over a decade of research on epidemics, we argue that the origins, unfolding and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic require analysis that addresses both structural political-economic conditions alongside far less ordered, 'unruly' processes reflecting complexity, uncertainty, contingency and context-specificity. This structural-unruly duality in the conditions and processes of pandemic emergence, progression and impact provides a lens to view three key challenge areas. The first is how scientific advice and evidence are used in policy, when conditions are rigidly 'locked in' to established power relations and yet so uncertain. Second is how economies function, with the COVID-19 crisis having revealed the limits of a conventional model of economic growth. The third concerns how new forms of politics can become the basis of reshaped citizen-state relations in confronting a pandemic, such as those around mutual solidarity and care. COVID-19 demonstrates that we face an uncertain future, where anticipation of and resilience to major shocks must become the core problematic of development studies and practice. Where mainstream approaches to development have been top down, rigid and orientated towards narrowly-defined economic goals, post-COVID-19 development must have a radically transformative, egalitarian and inclusive knowledge and politics at its core.
The market-reach of pandemics: Evidence from female workers in Ethiopia's ready-made garment industry.
Meyer CJ, Hardy M, Witte M … +2 more , Kagy G, Demeke E
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 33071434 · Full text
In a globalized world, pandemics transmit impacts through markets. We document employment changes, coping strategies, and welfare of garment factory workers in Ethiopia's largest industrial park during the early stages o...
In a globalized world, pandemics transmit impacts through markets. We document employment changes, coping strategies, and welfare of garment factory workers in Ethiopia's largest industrial park during the early stages of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic. We field a phone survey of female workers during a two month period in which cases are rapidly rising globally, but not locally. Our data suggest significant changes in employment, high levels of migration away from urban areas to rural areas if women are no longer working, and high levels of food insecurity. These findings compel a research and policy focus on documenting and mitigating the market-reach of pandemics on low-income workers at the margins.
COVID-19 and the rise of intimate partner violence.
Agüero JM
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 33012955 · Full text
Stay-at-home policies have been implemented worldwide to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, there is a growing concern that such policies could increase violence against women. We find evidence in suppor...
Stay-at-home policies have been implemented worldwide to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, there is a growing concern that such policies could increase violence against women. We find evidence in support of this critical concern. We focus on Peru, a country that imposed a strict nationwide lockdown starting in mid-March and where nearly 60% of women already experienced violence COVID-19. Using administrative data on phone calls to the helpline for domestic violence (), we find that the incidence rate of the calls increased by 48 percent between April and July 2020, with effects increasing over time. The rise in calls is found across all states and it is not driven by baseline characteristics, including previous prevalence of violence against women. These findings create the need to identify policies to mitigate the negative impact of stay-at-home orders on women's safety.
An adaptive governance and health system response for the COVID-19 emergency.
Khan M, Roy P, Matin I … +2 more , Rabbani M, Chowdhury R
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 33012954 · Full text
In the absence of an efficacious and affordable vaccine, the current crisis of COVID-19 is likely to be a long drawn one for many developing countries. In Bangladesh, where the entire population is susceptible and strict...
In the absence of an efficacious and affordable vaccine, the current crisis of COVID-19 is likely to be a long drawn one for many developing countries. In Bangladesh, where the entire population is susceptible and strict lockdown has been relaxed (as of May 31st 2020) due to concerns over saving livelihoods, the best available resources and capacities in the country have to be mobilized for an integrated and adaptive response strategy. In this paper we argue that a suitable response strategy for a country with highly constrained health system, must consider how response components will be delivered at scale, along with what can be delivered. In order to save maximum number of lives, an optimal strategy will be one that is able to iteratively select the most feasible set of health response and the network of organizations that can deliver most effectively at scale. This might require thinking outside of the conventional vertical network of public health system. Given its history of high-capacity non-government organizations in Bangladesh, it is likely that there are multiple alternative horizontal network options for delivering any set of response interventions. In fact many horizontal networks are already actively engaged in COVID-19 response work. The goal should be to identify and coordinate these networks, create new networks, and embed mechanisms for scaling up what works and scaling down what does not work. For a rapidly escalating and unpredictable crisis such as COVID-19, an adaptive response strategy is needed which allows for old and new networks of organizations to align and work collectively with minimum loss of lives.
Industrial policy for sustainable human development in the post-Covid19 era.
Ferrannini A, Barbieri E, Biggeri M … +1 more , Di Tommaso MR
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 32994664 · Full text
National and local societies all around the world are fighting the most dramatic global public health emergency of our time, which has soon become an economic, social and human crisis touching all key dimensions of our l...
National and local societies all around the world are fighting the most dramatic global public health emergency of our time, which has soon become an economic, social and human crisis touching all key dimensions of our lives. Within an inevitable revamping attention on the need for government intervention to face the challenges raised by the Covid19 pandemic, industrial policy is appearing as a central piece of the puzzle. As production dynamics in every country is highly affected by the crisis, industrial policy is considered part of the response to solve dramatic economic and social problems deriving by extraordinary levels of unemployment, deprivation and poverty. In this paper, we argue that a turning point on the connection between industrial policy, sustainability and development has been reached, highlighting the need to rethink its theoretical foundations as well as its governance and implementation processes for a new role in our post-Covid 19 societies. Therefore, the research question underlying this paper deals primarily with the nexus between the debate on industrial policy and its effects in terms of human development, social cohesion and sustainability. For this reason, we attempt at closing the gap between different strands of literature, whose integrated connection leads to a new analytical framework with real-world implications on the role of industrial policy, not only as tool for productive dynamics, but also as a leverage for sustainable human development. All in all, we aim at contributing to the debate on our post-Covid19 economies and societies in two ways: firstly, by providing a new integrated analytical framework on industrial policy to steer a sustainable structural change of our economies and societies towards sustainable human development; secondly, by identifying preliminary implications on industrial policy governance and implementation, investing in the accurate and transparent design of industrial policy in the post-Covid19 era.
Lessons for climate policy from behavioral biases towards COVID-19 and climate change risks.
Botzen W, Duijndam S, van Beukering P
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 32994663 · Full text
COVID-19 and climate change share several striking similarities in terms of causes and consequences. For instance, COVID-19 and climate change affect deprived and vulnerable communities the most, which implies that effec...
COVID-19 and climate change share several striking similarities in terms of causes and consequences. For instance, COVID-19 and climate change affect deprived and vulnerable communities the most, which implies that effectively designed policies that mitigate these risks may also reduce the widening inequalities that they cause. Both problems can be characterized as low-probability-high consequence (LP-HC) risks, which are associated with various behavioral biases that imply that individual behavior deviates from rational risk assessments by experts and optimal preparedness strategies. One could view the COVID-19 pandemic as a rapid learning experiment about how to cope more effectively with climate change and develop actions for reducing its impacts before it is too late. However, the ensuing question relates to whether the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath will speed up climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, which depends on how individuals perceive and take action to reduce LP-HC risks. Using insights into behavioral biases in individual decisions about LP-HC risks based on decades of empirical research in psychology and behavioral economics, we illustrate how parallels can be drawn between decision-making processes about COVID-19 and climate change. In particular, we discuss six important risk-related behavioral biases in the context of individual decision making about these two global challenges to derive lessons for climate policy. We contend that the impacts from climate change can be mitigated if we proactively draw lessons from the pandemic, and implement policies that work , instead of , an individual's risk perceptions and biases. We conclude with recommendations for communication policies that make people pay attention to climate change risks and for linking government responses to the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath with environmental sustainability and climate action.
All things equal? Heterogeneity in policy effectiveness against COVID-19 spread in chile.
Bennett M
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 32994662 · Full text
Several variables and practices affect the evolution and geographic spread of COVID-19. Some of these variables pertain to policy measures such as social distancing, quarantines for specific areas, and testing availabili...
Several variables and practices affect the evolution and geographic spread of COVID-19. Some of these variables pertain to policy measures such as social distancing, quarantines for specific areas, and testing availability. In this paper, I analyze the effect that lockdown and testing policies had on new contagions in Chile, especially focusing on potential heterogeneity given by population characteristics. Leveraging a natural experiment in the determination of early quarantines, I use an Augmented Synthetic Control Method to build counterfactuals for high and lower-income areas that experienced a lockdown during the first two months of the pandemic. I find substantial differences in the impact that quarantine policies had for different populations: While lockdowns were effective in containing and reducing new cases of COVID-19 in higher-income municipalities, I find no significant effect of this measure for lower-income areas. To further explain these results, I test for difference in mobility during quarantine for high and lower-income municipalities, as well as delays in test results and testing availability. These findings are consistent with previous results, showing that differences in the effectiveness of lockdowns could be partially attributed to heterogeneity in quarantine compliance in terms of mobility, as well as differential testing availability for higher and lower-income areas.
The Kerala model in the time of COVID19: Rethinking state, society and democracy.
Chathukulam J, Tharamangalam J
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 32989341 · Full text
Kerala, a small state in South India, has been celebrated as a development model by scholars across the world for its exemplary achievements in human development and poverty reduction despite relatively low GDP growth. I...
Kerala, a small state in South India, has been celebrated as a development model by scholars across the world for its exemplary achievements in human development and poverty reduction despite relatively low GDP growth. It was no surprise, then, that the Covid 19 pandemic that hit Kerala before any other part of India, became a test case for the Kerala model in dealing with such a crisis. Kerala was lauded across the world once again as a success story in containing this unprecedented pandemic, in treating those infected, and in making needed provisions for those adversely affected by the lockdown. But as it turned out, this celebration was premature as Kerala soon faced a third wave of Covid 19 infections. The objective of this paper is to examine Kerala's trajectory in achieving the success and then confronting the unanticipated reversal. It will examine the legacy of the Kerala model such as robust and decentralized institutions and provisions for healthcare, welfare and safety nets, and especially the capacity of a democratic state working in synergy with civil society and enjoying a high degree of consensus and public trust. It will then examine the new surge of the virus and attempts to establish if this was due to any mistakes made by the state or some deficits in its model of "public action" that includes adversarial politics having a disruptive tenor about it. We will conclude by arguing that the Kerala model is still relevant, and that it is still a model in motion.
COVID-19 implications on household income and food security in Kenya and Uganda: Findings from a rapid assessment.
Kansiime MK, Tambo JA, Mugambi I … +3 more , Bundi M, Kara A, Owuor C
World Dev · 2021 Jan · PMID 32982018 · Full text
This study assessed implications of the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic on household income and food security in two East African countries - Kenya and Uganda, using online survey data from 442 respondents. Re...
This study assessed implications of the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic on household income and food security in two East African countries - Kenya and Uganda, using online survey data from 442 respondents. Results show that more than two-thirds of the respondents experienced income shocks due to the COVID-19 crisis. Food security and dietary quality worsened, as measured by the food insecurity experience scale and the frequency of consumption of nutritionally-rich foods. The proportion of food insecure respondents increased by 38% and 44% in Kenya and Uganda respectively, and in both countries, the regular consumption of fruits decreased by about 30% during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to a normal period (before the pandemic). Results from probit regressions show that the income-poor households and those dependent on labour income were more vulnerable to income shock, and had poorer food consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to other respondent categories. As such, they were more likely to employ food-based coping strategies compared to those pursuing alternative livelihoods, who generally relied on savings. Farmers were less likely to experience worsened food security compared to other respondent categories who depended to a great extent on market sources for food. In both countries, participation in national social security schemes was less likely to mitigate respondents' income shock during the COVID-19 period. Conversely, membership in savings and loan groups was correlated with less likelihood of suffering income shocks and reduction in food consumption. The results suggest that ongoing and future government responses should focus on structural changes in social security by developing responsive packages to cushion members pushed into poverty by such pandemics while building strong financial institutions to support the recovery of businesses in the medium term, and ensuring the resilience of food supply chains particularly those making available nutrient-dense foods.
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