Food and nutrition security interventions in response to COVID-19

Policy Brief to support the COVID-19 support programme of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

02.12.2020

Policy Brief on food and nutrition security interventions

In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), so-called "developing countries", the COVID-19 pandemic has had ans still has drastic effects on food and nutrition security. It is estimated that the number of people at risk of hunger or in acute food insecurity will almost double in 2020 compared to the previous year, making effective support programmes more necessary than ever.

In May, the RIE team of the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval) met for an emergency meeting on the occasion of the COVID-19 pandemic to review the findings from Rigorous Impact Evaluations (RIEs) aimed to assess actions, and from systematic reviews to support the development of the Emergency COVID-19 Support Programme by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Policy Briefs published by BMZ and DEval summarize the current state of research on a subject in a concise and understandable manner and are intended to make a contribution to effective and evidence-based German and international development cooperation.

One of these policy briefs summarizes the evaluation of intervention measures in order to increase food and nutrition safety in LMICs during the Corona crisis. Dr. Hanna Freudenreich from the Leibniz Institute for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) co-led the team of authors. They summarize the central recommendations from the results of evaluations and reviews as follows:

"Social safety nets need to be maintained and expanded to safeguard food and nutrition security among vulnerable groups (women,the young, smallholder farmers, urban poor)and those experiencing greatest income losses"
"Food system interventions need to be adapted to respect safety and hygiene standards and be flexible, avoiding earmarked funds since adaptability of interventions is essential to provide nees-based aid.!
Further research and real-time data are critical to understand how well the measures taken in response to Covid-19 are working.Subnational and target-group disaggregated data can inform policy decisions assuring thefunctioning of food systems.

On December 8th, the Policy Brief "Effective interventions to increase food and nutrition security in response to Covid-19" is presented by Dr. Hanna Freudenreich (IGZ) and Dr. Kathrin Demmler (GAIN) pa WebEx Webinar from 1 p.m. to 1.30 p.m.