#2021ReSAKSS - Plenary Session I – presentation by Dr. Eliane Ubalijoro, Executive Director, Sustainability in The Digital Age, Global Hub Director, Canada, Future Earth, and Co-editor of the 2021 Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR)

1. Eliane Ubalijoro, PhD
Global Hub Director, Canada, Future Earth
Executive Director, Sustainability in the DigitalAge
Professor of Practice, McGill University

2. Overview of the 2021 Annual
Trends and Outlook Report
Introduction
Impacts of COVID-19 on African countries
Responses of African countries to COVID-19
Measurement Issues
Progress toward CAADP goals
Conclusion

3. COVID-19
Global Coronavirus Cases:
• 253,131,976
Deaths:
• 5,102,441
Recovered:
• 228,948,124
From https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
African Coronavirus Cases:
“There have been at least
8,629,000 reported infections
and 220,000 reported deaths
caused by the novel
coronavirus in Africa so far.”
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-
maps/regions/africa/

4. COVID-19 vaccine
Global data
• Doses given 7.41B +25.8M
• Fully vaccinated 3.17B
+9.66M
• % of population fully
vaccinated 40.7% +0.1%
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-
vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL
• “Africa has fully vaccinated 77
million people, just 6% of its
population. In comparison, over
70% of high-income countries
have already vaccinated more
than 40% of their people.”
https://www.afro.who.int/news/less-10-african-countries-hit-key-
covid-19-vaccination-goal

5. Overall Context
“Across the globe, the immediate priority for policymakers has
been to address the health crisis and contain short-term economic
damage. As a result, the global economy is now facing its greatest
recession since the last financial crisis of 2008–09.” ATOR 2021
“In Africa south of the Sahara, growth declined by 1.7 percent in
2020 and is recovering at a projected rate of 3.7 percent (IMF
2021); however, the decline in per capita terms was greater and is
expected to have resulted in significant increases in poverty and
hunger.” ATOR 2021
“The early effects of the pandemic have shown that achieving the
goal of sustainable healthy diets for all will require food systems—
at the local, country, and global levels—that are resilient and
capable of withstanding challenges posed by climate, health,
political, economic, and all other shocks.” ATOR 2021

6. Focus on Food and Nutrition
Security as well as the
Stresses of COVID-19.
“The 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) clearly signals
that food and nutrition security must be considered from a systems
framework.” ATOR 2021

7. Expected Impacts of COVID-19 on African
Food Systems
“Concern is growing that the direct and indirect effects of the
pandemic could be greater in Africa than the rest of the world as
a result of the continent’s much weaker institutions and health
system capacity, large number of poor and vulnerable people,
greater exposure to the world trade cycle, high dependence on
demand from advanced economies, and more pronounced
vulnerability to climate change impacts.” ATOR 2021
Most marginalized and informal market traders were initially the
the most affected.

8. Policy Responses to COVID-19
“Overall, African governments responded quickly to limit the spread
of COVID-19, imposing lockdowns and sanitary measures to
combat the disease. These actions, among other factors, may have
contributed to Africa’s relatively low death rates from the pandemic
(Soy 2020).” ATOR 2021
“Gentilini and colleagues (2020) find that nearly all African countries
scaled up social protection programs in response to the crisis.
However, coverage remains lower in Africa than in other world
regions.” ATOR 2921
Coverage in Sub Saharan Africa did increase by 3% compared to
pre-pandemic levels.

9. Case for Building Resilient African Food
Systems Post-2020
2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and
Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods:
(1) re-commit to the principles and values of the Comprehensive Africa
Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process;
(2) enhance investment finance in agriculture;
(3) end hunger by 2025;
(4) halve poverty through agriculture by 2025;
(5) boost intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services;
(6) enhance resilience to climate variability; and
(7) strengthen mutual accountability for actions and results.

10. COVID-19 demonstrated need to extend
Commitment on resilience
• Extend focus beyond preparedness to present and future
climate variabilities and shots
• Efforts should also include focus on other risks and shocks
• Short, medium and long term impacts each require specific
attention
• Focus on Food Systems value chains as well as ecosystems
services that build resilience to shocks
• Attention at Macro and Micro level can reveal discrepancies in
who is most vulnerable based on socioeconomic disparaties.

11. What ATOR 2021 covers:
1. Assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on African economies with
a focus on food systems from access to inputs to household
consumption
2. Review of policy interventions to stop the spread of the pandemic
and contain its negative impact on food systems across the
continent
3. Highlights innovations in measurement needed to better
understand the effects of the pandemic and the factors contributing
to resilience.
4. Tracking of progress toward Comprehensive Africa Agriculture
Development Programme (CAADP)

12. Impacts of COVID-19 on African
Food Systems
“Formal trade in food and agricultural products rebounded in the second half of 2020 after sharp
declines in the early months of the pandemic. However, hunger has increased alarmingly since 2019,
with the number of undernourished people in Africa expected to increase by 46 million in 2020. An
additional 800 million people, or 60 percent of the continent’s population, were expected to be affected
by moderate or severe food insecurity. Global- and regional-level projections confirm the enormous
challenges of eradicating hunger and malnutrition by 2030.” ATOR 2021
“The price behavior of staple foods differed markedly between areas, with sharp price increases in
some markets and steep declines in others. These differences are related to market and commodity
characteristics, as well as countries’ roles in cross-border food trade. The findings underline the
importance of tailoring policy responses to location-specific characteristics and designing health-
related measures carefully to avoid impeding market functionality and the movement of food within
and between countries.” ATOR 2021
“Negative impacts were lower in countries with more diversified export baskets, underlining the need
for countries to diversify trade to remain resilient to global shocks. Among the different food system
components examined, food processing industries were by far the most vulnerable to negative
impacts of the pandemic, as demand for their products is sensitive to declines in income.” ATOR 2021
“Levels of vulnerability differ markedly between as well as within countries, underlining the need for
decision-makers to monitor local effects closely and be prepared to intervene in areas with high levels
of vulnerability.” ATOR 2021

13. Policy Responses to COVID-19
• Assessing African economic policy responses against COVID-19
show the complexity of this space, the need for further research
and the need to further innovate and integrate digital data to
accelerate capacity for effective emergency response.
• Delivery of Social Protection Programs to Combat COVID-19 in
Africa require increased resources, especially to support the most
vulnerable.
• Rethinking the Role of Social Protection in African Food Systems
Post-COVID is critical to rural and urban households that saw
significant decline in income during the pandemic.

14. Measurement issues
• Remote Sensing and Machine Learning for Food Crop Production Data in
Africa Post-COVID-19 needs to be harnessed to ensure high quality data
can be used to enhance resilience.
• Measurement approaches for a Health Systems Sensitive Resilience
Index are critical to ensure agile responses to global health shocks.
• The Measurement of Resilience Capacities through the Integration of
Macro-Level and Micro-Level Indicators show that strong health systems
protect against food insecurity.
• Methods of Assessment of the Impact of COVID-19 on Community Dietary
Patterns are critical to behavioral change communication strategies.
• A consumer-food security nexus framework needs to drive assessment of
value chain performance.

15. Progress toward CAADP goals
According to Tefera, Collins, and Makombe “policies to promote cross-
border trade are important to ensure consumers’ access to food and
producers’ access to inputs as well as broader markets. In addition to
trade facilitation efforts, these policies should include initiatives to
improve the quality and completeness of trade data, including informal
trade, in order to allow countries to better monitor the effects of crises
on trade and identify means to mitigate negative impacts (Bouët,
Tadesse, and Zaki, 2021). An important positive development during
the COVID-19 period was the launch of trading under the African
Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement on January 1st,
2021. AfCFTA implementation should be accelerated in order to
ensure that its potential benefits in terms of increased incomes and
food security contribute to Africa’s recovery from the effects of the
pandemic.” ATOR 2021

16. Impacts of COVID-19 on African
countries
• “Overall trade in the agricultural sector remained resilient
following the onset of the pandemic… African countries with
well-diversified export bases tended to be more resilient to
external shocks… COVID-19 has significantly influenced
hunger and food insecurity across the continent… the pandemic
led more than half of the continent’s population (close to 800
million people) to become either moderately or severely food
insecure.” ATOR 2021
• Focus on most vulnerable is needed to ensure they are not left
behind when it comes to food security

17. Strategic responses of African countries to
COVID-19
“Sector-specific in-kind transfers were the main policy response,
though the intensity and type varied between countries. However, the
effectiveness in implementing the policy responses as well as the use
of innovative approaches were minimal… already existing social
transfer programs can better respond to COVID-19-induced shocks
than new ad hoc initiatives. However, the programs need to expand to
urban areas to aid the vulnerable poor disproportionately affected by
the pandemic. To enhance the sustainability of social protection
programs, domestic resource mobilization efforts also need to be
strengthened… actions taken by governments in Africa to contain the
pandemic not only exacerbated existing challenges but also exposed
new sources of vulnerability… there is a need to recognize the role of
social protection interventions beyond that of a safety net and to
improve the integration of social protection programs into overall
development frameworks.” ATOR 2021

18. Measurement issues
“Access to accurate and timely food crop production data is paramount,
as it provides information that can better prepare a country to respond to
shocks. Nonetheless, for several reasons—including human capital,
finances, and other limitations—the sustainable collection of accurate
and timely data remains a challenge for most African countries.” ATOR
2021
This must change to align food systems resilience to climate mitigation
and adaptation needs in line with the decade of ecosystem restoration
Micro and Macro need to be better linked across health and agriculture
“Disruptions to food systems can negatively influence the availability of
and access to nutritious food, leading to unhealthy diets and health
risks. Adequate measurements of dietary patterns are needed to
monitor and manage changes in a population’s dietary behavior.” ATOR
2021

19. Progress toward CAADP goals
“In 2020, Africa recorded an economic recession for the first time in more
than two decades and the continent’s GDP per capita regressed to the level
recorded a decade ago. Millions of jobs have also been lost as a result of
the pandemic. The significant reduction in household incomes, interruption
of services, and fluctuations in the availability and affordability of healthy
diets played a notable role in generating similar negative trends for nutrition.
After increasing in recent years, the prevalence of undernourishment further
expanded in 2020. Prior to 2020, meaningful progress was made to
consistently reduce child malnutrition, although the level remained high. The
pandemic, however, is expected to reverse this progress for years to come.”
ATOR 2021
Lessons learned from ATOR 2021 can help continue the progress that was
made prior to the pandemic and build forward stronger.

20. Conclusion
• It is urgent that evidence-based strategies that ensure stable food and
nutrition security and support economic growth across the continent
include:
1. Enhancing social protection programs.
2. Ensuring the functioning of markets.
3. Developing a more comprehensive indicator framework aided by
deployment of new measurement methodologies linking health to food
systems and the adoption of more ecologically viable agricultural
production practices.
Investing in social protection programs, understanding market dynamics,
and developing a more comprehensive data strategy are important first
steps for future actions that should be taken.