Neha Kumar BOOK LAUNCH COVID-19 & Global Food Security: 2 Years Later MAR 7, 2022 - 9:30 TO 11:00AM EST

1. Neha Kumar
Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI
Nutrition, Health
and Social
Programs

2. COVID-19’s impacts on nutrition
• Grim projections for nutrition outcomes
among children and women (Ruel and
Headey):
• 9.3 million ↑ wasted children
• 2.6 million ↑ stunted children
• 168,000 child deaths
• 2.1 ↑ million women suffering from anemia
• $29 billion in future productivity losses
mostly in SA and SSA
• Triggered by supply and demand side
challenges (Nguyen et al)

3. School closures affected
more than the educational
outcomes…
• School closures and unequal access to e-
learning options (Pant et al):
• Learning losses with long terms impacts on
lifetime earnings
• Lead to dropouts among the most vulnerable
– poor, girls and other marginalized groups
• Potential exposure to domestic violence
• ↑ Food insecurity due to interruption in
school meals (Abay et al)
• Heterogenous impacts- single mothers and
poorer households more likely to report
increase in food insecurity

4. Social Protection: successes
and some failures
• Increasing entitlements and coverage was not
straightforward:
• 40% received the additional transfersi in Bangladesh’s
Food Friendly Program (Chowdhury et al)
• Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia was able to
expedite transfers but not the increase the
entitlements (Gilligan et al)
• Extending social support programs can trigger
greater GDP growth among other other things
(South Africa, Gabriel et al)
• In Ethiopia, the PSNP offset virtually all adverse
pandemic-related impacts for participating
households. (Gilligan et al, Abay, Berhane et al)

5. Looking ahead…
• More flexible social protection
programs
• Ability to increase coverage and
entitlements
• Safeguard and promote access to
nutritious, safe and affordable diets
• Make social safety nets nutrition
sensitive
• School meals
• Invest in maternal and child nutrition
• Better services and infrastructure