1. Food Security in the Context of
COVID-19: Challenges and
Opportunities
Presented By:
Dr Khaled Eltaweel
Regional Coordinator, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO)
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2. COVID-19 has
affected the pillars of
Food Security
• “Food security exists when all people,
at all times, have physical, social and
economic access to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food to meet their
dietary needs and food preferences for
an active and healthy life”.
• Food Security Pillars:
• Availability.
• Access.
• Utilization.
• Stability/.
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3. The world is not on track to achieve Agenda 2030
• Hunger is up to 811 million people in
2020 (161 million increase).
• 2.37 billion (30% of the world) did not
have access to adequate food (up by 320
million).
• PoU increased from 8.4% to 9.9%
percent.
• SDG Target 2.1, of ensuring access to
safe, nutritious and sufficient food or
SDG Target 2.2, of eradicating all forms
of malnutrition are not on track to be
achieved.
• 660 million people may still face
hunger in 2030 in part due to lasting
effects of the pandemic.
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Source: SOFI2021

4. Unequal distribution of Food insecurity
- More than half of the world’s
undernourished are in Asia and one-
third in Africa.
- 46 million more unnourished people in
Africa and 57 million in Asia in 2020.
- Almost all low and middle-income
countries were affected by pandemic-
induced economic downturns- Five
times greater than the highest increase
in undernourishment in the last two
decades.
- Combined impacts of the pandemic
and climate-related disasters and
conflicts.
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Source: SOFI 2021

5. Africa is lagging Behind in SDG2
- About 21% faced hunger in 2020
(double the proportion of other
regions).
- Nine out of ten of children with
stunting and wasting live in Africa
and Asia.
- More than 30% of Women suffer
from Anemia (SDG indicator 2.2.3)
vs. 14.6% in Northern America and
Europe.
- One billion in Africa cant afford
healthy diet.
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Source: SOFI

6. Food insecurity in Africa’s sub-regions
• Severe food insecurity increased sharply in
Western Africa from 19.6 to 28.8 percent
during 2019–2020.
• Moderate increases in Southern Africa-
prevalence of moderate insecurity rose from
44.3 to 49.7 percent.
• Smaller increases of 1% percent in Northern
Africa, where 30.2 percent of the population
was affected by moderate or severe food
insecurity in 2020.
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Source: SOFI

7. COVID-19 exposed Agrifood systems Vulnerabilities
- COVID-19 added to the pressures on
agrifood systems.
- External Drivers (conflicts or climate shocks,
and Economic slowdown; COVID-19).
- Internal Drivers (e.g. low productivity and
inefficient food supply chains; high cost of
healthy diets and inequality ).
- 3 billion people, especially the poor, in
every region of cant afford healthy diet.
- The Food Systems summit recognizes those
drivers and set the stage for food systems
transformation to achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals by 2030.
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8. World Economies are Recovering
• 2020: Double Hits (decreasing export earnings
combined with increasing bill of imports); 200 million
jobs lost and 95 million more below poverty line.
• One percent fall in growth of the world economy
pushed more than 22 million people into extreme
poverty and 0.7 million stunned children.
• 2021: Upward outlook supported by fiscal support in
advanced economies.
• Global growth of 6.0% in 2021 and 4.9% in 2022.
• Recovery will vary across countries.
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9. Food Prices continue to increase
• FAO Food Price Index reached 133.2 points
in October 2021 (3% increase from
September and 31.3% increase from
October 2020. Highest level since July
2011.
• The agricultural and food sector
demonstrated resilience in face of the
global COVID-19 pandemic, but the
compounding effect of income losses and
inflation have impacted access to healthy
diets (FAO-OECD agriculture outlook 2021-
2030).
- 111 measures of initial temporary export
prohibition.
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10. FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme
• 1.3 billion USD Programme.
• Global Humanitarian Response Plan.
• Data for decision-making.
• Economic inclusion and social protection to
reduce poverty.
• Trade and food safety standards.
• Boosting smallholder resilience for recovery.
• Preventing the next zoonotic pandemic.
• Agrifood systems transformation.
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11. FAO Strategic Framework 2022-2031
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12. The FAO Hand in Hand Initiative
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• An evidence based initiative to
reduce poverty, eliminate hunger
and increase agriculture productivity
and rural living standards.
• Using geo‐spatial modeling to
identify the biggest opportunities to
raise income and reduce inequalities.
• Focus on LDCs, Land-locked, SIDS,
highly populated, and Food Crises
countries.
• Match Making between Resource Partners and
Developing Countries.
• .

13. South-South and Triangular Cooperation
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• SSTC is a key delivery modality to catalyze
agricultural development, food security, rural
development, poverty reduction and nutrition.
• FAO's capacity as a global advocator, convener,
broker, facilitator and enabler of SSTC as part of
the Decade of Action to accelerate the
implementation of the Agenda 2030.
• Key thematic focus areas include the Hand-in-
Hand-Initiative (HIHI), Agricultural Innovation,
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and COVID-
19 Recovery and Response.

14. Six Pathways to Agrifood Systems Transformation
• Formulation of comprehensive
portfolios of policies, investments
and legislation along several
pathways simultaneously.
• Coherence among food, health,
social protection and environmental
systems is essential.
• Accelerators as effective and
inclusive governance mechanisms
and access to technology, data and
innovation.
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SOFI 2021

15. Agrifood Systems coherence with other Systems
• Environmental systems interact
with food systems at the
production level.
• Health systems ensure that
people are able to utilize foods.
• Social protection systems
addresses vulnerabilities to
poverty through the reduction
of financial barriers to food
access.
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16. Conclusions
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• COVID-19 is l wake-up call on the fragility of our agrifood systems and the
need to tackle the root causes of food insecurity and design evidence-
based interventions.
• Use agrifood system lens to better understand the interactions between
food security drivers and other systems to identify points of
interventions.
• Build on the moment created by the Food Systems summit to continue to
put food security on top of the international agenda and transform
agrifood systems to provide affordable health diets that are sustainable
and inclusive.
• Partnerships between FAO and the African Union is key to achieving
Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063.

17. Leave no one behind
Khaled.Eltaweel@fao.org
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