Food security and welfare changes under COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: Impacts and responses in Kenya

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all Sub-Saharan economies through a multitude of impact channels. The study determines the medium-term macroeconomic outcomes of the pandemic on the Kenyan economy and links the results with a detailed food security and nutrition microsimulation module. It thus evaluates the effectiveness of the adopted government measures to reduce the negative outcomes on food security and to enable economic recovery at aggregate, sectoral and household levels. Through income support measures, the food sector and food demand partially recover. However, 1.3% of households still fall below calorie intake thresholds, many of which are in rural areas. Results also indicate that the state of food security in Kenya remains vulnerable to the evolution of the pandemic abroad.

Food Security Sustainability: A Synthesis of the Current Concepts and Empirical Approaches for Meeting SDGs

“…For policymakers and governments in developing and particularly in lowincome countries, food security offers even further challenges both from the perspective of achieving SDGs targets and the welfare perspective of the many poor households in the global economies as documented in the literature. For instance, COVID-19 has continued to pose serious economic [19] and welfare challenges to households in Sub-Saharan Africa [16,23]. By implication, this is an alarming aspect for the prospect of sustainable development of food security in Nigeria.…”

“…According to the USDA. Economic Research Service, Nigeria has a population of 19.9 million people who are food insecure, which is greater than the population of seven West African countries altogether [16]. According to the FAO cadre Harmonized Analysis Report, 2018, over 1.7 million people are now food insecure.…”

Do agri-food market incentives improve food security and nutrition indicators? a microsimulation evaluation for Kenya

“…Nonetheless, economic papers based on this combined approach are still oriented to welfare and food access dimension (Beyene et al, 2018;Boulanger et al, 2020;Pauw et al, 2018), lacking the biological-nutritional dimension (i.e., macro and micro-nutrients; nutritional and health statuses of household members). Nechifor et al (2021) is the recent exception quantifying the COVID-19 restrictions and policies impact on welfare, daily calories and macronutrients intakes per capita.…”

The COVID Crumbling of Tourism in Andalusia: An Assessment of Economic and Environmental Consequences

“…Some papers focus on one or few countries. Nechifor et al (2020aNechifor et al ( , 2020bNechifor et al ( , 2021 identify five impact channels in their analysis for Kenya (labor productivity, demand for exports and tourism, internal trade costs, domestic demand, and remittances). Roson and Costa (2020) analyze the shock related to lockdown measures in Italy and France, which is interpreted as a reduction of productivity.…”