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Humanitarian implications of sanctions to end the war in Ukraine

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The sanctions package against Russia is expanding every day as the main strategy to end the invasion of Ukraine. While it is inevitable that ordinary Russians will suffer from these sanctions (as will people in the countries applying these sanctions), we must do everything in our ability to protect all civilians affected by this war, including people in Russia, from the impact of sanctions. This is not an easy task at all. On one hand, the sanctions might bring suffering to people in Russia (primarily for the most vulnerable ones), but on the other hand, they might lead to the end of the war, and, thereby, save many lives and reduce the extreme suffering of millions in Ukraine.

The great dilemma: using sanctions as a tool to end war

This great dilemma of how to stop the war while avoiding more suffering should not be taken lightly, and its impacts carefully assessed. On Tuesday evening, we listened to a conversation with two well-known military experts on the Dutch radio: Rob de Wijk and Arend Jan Boekestijn. After a while the conversation turned to the effects of the sanctions. Rob de Wijk stated, ‘‘We will smoke out the ’regime’.” He found it likely that the ruble would completely collapse, and hence destroy the Russian economy. Boekestijn went one step further. He praised that the Russians, as a result of the imposed sanctions, can no longer withdraw money from ATM machines. He continued, “when people get hungry, they will go out on the ’street’.” While the sanction seek to affect those in power, oligarchs, and the government itself, either of these two men did not seemed concerned about what their predictions would mean for the majority of people in Russia. On the contrary, they were impressed and fascinated by the sanctions, and almost jubilant about their possible effects.

The assumption, however, that hungry people will take to the streets to overthrow Putin is debatable. It ignores the fact that many Russians have already taken to the streets. In the early days of the war, an estimated 5,000 Russian civilians were arrested during widespread protests against the war. The effects of large-scale protests are also uncertain. Until now, we have never seen Putin care much about protests or act based on what people think.

The unsettling costs of sanctions: hurting the innocent and the most vulnerable

Provoking hunger is, unfortunately, a common weapon of war. Forcing the enemy to surrender through a siege that cuts off an area from food is a recurring theme in history. The creation myth of Carcassonne in France, in which Mrs. Carcass managed to deceive besiegers by throwing a well-fed pig over the city wall is just one of many examples. Emperor Charles V who besieged the castle did not realise it was the only pig left over in the desperately hungry city, and withdrew his troops when he concluded their siege was not successful. In the previous century, hunger has been used as a weapon of war in many conflicts — in China, Ethiopia, Biafra, Sudan, and so on. The Dutch hunger winter in the Second World War should not be missing from the long list as well, and nor should the so-called holodomor, in which Russia caused a dramatic famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, resulting in the death of more than 3 million people because of starvation.

Hunger often kills more civilians during wars than armed violence, and the long term effects of malnutrition are incalculable. The World Peace Foundation has listed 61 famines as part of conflicts that took place between 1870 and 2015. A conservative estimate of the number of victims came to 105 million deaths. To end hunger as a weapon of war, an international resolution was passed in 2018 condemning this. The resolution 2417 was an initiative of the Netherlands, and thanks to a great deal of diplomatic effort, it was adopted with unanimous support by the Security Council of the United Nations.

Making sanctions work without impacting civilians — is it possible? Sanctions are meant to end the invasion. Russia is targeting civilians with the bombing and seems to be rapidly accumulating war crimes. In the last 8 years, while war was ongoing in the separatist regions of Ukraine, humanitarian needs were immense. There were at least 850.000 people internally displaced, along with an acute need for socio-economic and psycho-social care. Aid providers shared with us about the difficulties they faced in the areas controlled by the Russian-backed separatists, ranging from concerns for the safety of aid providers to administrative hindrances (withholding permissions) in providing access. It will, therefore, be important to continue negotiating access to Ukraine, and enabling people to move freely in search for refuge, and most importantly seek an end to the invasion.

There is great optimism that the international solidarity and widely shared support for sanctions may facilitate the end of the war. It is inevitable that ordinary Russian civilians will bear some of the burden of the imposed sanctions. But we cannot let this become the goal. Instead, let us think about how to organise sanctions so that citizens are spared as much as possible, because the most vulnerable are, in every side of the conflict, the ones that usually pay the greatest costs.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Dorothea Hilhorst

Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.

Rodrigo Mena is Assistant Professor of Disasters and Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.

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COVID-19 | COVID-19 and the ‘collapse’ of the Philippines’ agricultural sector: a double disaster

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The enduring COVID-19 pandemic has led to a sharp spike in hunger among Filipinos resulting from an extended lockdown in this Southeast Asian country. This is driven in part by its problematic trade policy based largely on food imports and fluctuating global food prices. For those who also have to deal with the financial repercussions of the lockdown, increasing hunger due to poorer food availability along with increased poverty thus form a double disaster. Without the government’s immediate promotion and prioritisation of local food production and sustainable agricultural development, this could lead to even more widespread and severe hunger during and long after the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions across the world, threatening public health and safety[1], but also economic stability and food security. The lockdown, which has included mobility restrictions and physical distancing rules, has sped up job losses and has led to the shrinking of the world economy, leading to increased poverty and inequality worldwide. According to ILOstat[2], this has been linked with inflation that has altered consumer spending patterns globally. It has been noted that global food prices increased by an average of 5.5% between August 2019 and August 2020. Similar increases can be observed in all other regions.

Consequently, more people are going hungry now than ever before: this sharply reduced ability to acquire sufficient and nutritious food owing to food price fluctuations has resulted in considerable hunger and poverty globally, including in the Philippines, where an estimated 5.2 million Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger in 2020 according to the SWS National Mobile Survey.[3] The rise in food prices, which have increased by 70%, in effect ‘crushed’ especially the poorest.[4] I argue here that the country’s poor agricultural production and problematic agricultural policy, along with fluctuating global food prices, form a double disaster. To a primarily agriculture-based country like the Philippines, this double disaster of increased poverty and the greater vulnerability of the country’s food system that has resulted in even more widespread hunger in times of pandemic could be unfathomable. Unfortunately, the fact is undeniable.

Poverty, hunger, and food insecurity 

Restrictions were imposed in the Philippines shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO)’s announcement of the pandemic in March 2020, taking the form of enhanced community quarantines (ECQs)[5] or Modified ECQs (MECQs). Consequently, unemployment increased to 17.6% in April 2020[6], which led to the easing of the quarantine measures in June to prevent further financial distress. From August last year, however, as the number of COVID-19 infections rapidly increased once more, some parts of the country went back to localised MECQs imposed by local authorities.[7] The increased job losses and economic downturn increased poverty and hunger. The hunger rate increased by 4.2% from 16.7% between May and July 2020, and by 12.1% from 8.8% in December 2019.

But the country was already food insecure and facing an agriculture crisis prior to the pandemic. Besides leading to sharp increases in food prices, the pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of the Philippines’s agricultural sector and the need for policy reforms.

An agricultural crisis? 

As a result of these events, concerns have been raised about the resilience of agricultural production systems and the effectiveness of agricultural policies in staving off hunger. Especially in a country that is primarily agricultural, like the Philippines, reaching this extent of hunger and food insecurity must prompt questions about the country’s priorities and agriculture and trade policies, one of which is its importation policy. The country has been dependent on the importation of many food commodities (75% of rice, corn, coffee, pork, chicken (dressed), beef, onion, garlic, and peanuts are imported) for more than three decades already. While for Fermin Adriano, a scholar and policy advisor, this import dependency is mainly due to a lopsided agricultural productivity rate (1.7-1.8% in the period 2008 to 2018) and the population growth rate (1.3% for the same period)[8], the reasons for lagging agricultural production requires deeper investigation.

A recent webinar by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)[9] reiterates the people’s movement’s ongoing critique of the government’s lack of prioritisation of agricultural development and trade liberalisation that has resulted in the ‘collapse’ of the country’s agriculture and food system. As asserted by Ka Leony Montemayor[10] and Bong Inciong[11], two of the speakers at the webinar, the current agricultural system that is based on exploitation and exportation of agricultural products (by multinationals) and does not consider food as a community resource is a recipe for food insecurity and self-insufficiency. The poor agricultural performance and a switch to the import of foods such as rice, despite the fact that it is grown in the country, can first and foremost be considered a result of trade policies favouring importation above local distribution, says Arze Glipo[12].

Moreover, Edwin Lopez[13] reiterated that conventional farming methods (synthetic fertilisers, chemical pesticides, fossil fuel emissions from farm equipment and pump boats, the cutting of trees in plantations and the burning of crop residues) are strongly associated with climate change, which is seen to give rise to extreme weather conditions (the Philippines faces an average of 20 typhoons per year). This also influences the amount of food produces as the vulnerability of the country’s food and agricultural system increases.

In summary, since the start of trade liberalisation in the early 1990s, food importation policies and a lack of focus on developing the local agricultural sector seem to be the main culprits of lagging agricultural production and food insecurity in the country. In this light, promoting sustainable agriculture becomes more important. Sustainable agriculture characterised by food sovereignty, self-sufficiency and local food production based on a structural agricultural transformation are crucial to address this problem, as it becomes more severe during the pandemic. The failure to do so will lead to more severe hunger during and long after the pandemic has ended.

Footnotes

[1] In the Philippines, 945,745 infections and 16,048 deaths were registered as at 19 April 2021. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/philippines/

[2] https://ilostat.ilo.org/covid-19-is-driving-up-food-prices-all-over-the-world/

[3] https://www.cnn.ph/news/2020/7/21/SWS-survey-5.2-million-families-hunger.html

[4] https://www.rappler.com/business/charts-rising-prices-crush-urban-poor-manila-covid-19-pandemic

[5] “The Philippines’s ECQs is one of the most stringent measures in the region, which restricted people’s movements except for essential purposes (related to medical and health conditions, for instance) and enforced the closure of nearly all non-essential shops and stores. The modified ECQs (MECQs), had a partial and limited relaxation of business operation.” (https://www.cnn.ph/news/2020/7/21/SWS-survey-5.2-million-families-hunger.html)

[6] https://www.rappler.com/business/unemployment-rate-philippines-july-2020

[7] https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/philippines/brief/covid-19-impacts-on-low-income-families-in-the-philippines

[8]https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/07/30/business/agribusiness/why-is-the-philippines-a-food-importer/747772/

[9] The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) is a local NGO formally launched in 1988, guided by a framework of human development, equity, economic rights, economic justice, democratising the economy, sustainable economy, economic growth (that is humane, equitable, sustainable), economic sovereignty and national self-reliance, and fair and beneficial global economic relations. See https://www.facebook.com/fdcphilippines

[10] Ka Leony Montemayor is the President of the Free Farmers’ Federation, a federation of agricultural tenants, owner-cultivators, agricultural labourers, fishermen, and settlers. See http://www.freefarm.org/.

[11] Bong Inciong is the President of the United Broiler Raisers’ Association, a local non-profit association of small and medium scale poultry producers. See http://ubra.com.ph/

[12] Arze Glipo is the Executive Director of the Integrated Rural Development Foundation, a Filipino NGO that promotes development programs focused on the social and economic empowerment of people from marginalised and vulnerable groups. See https://www.irdf.org.ph

[13] Edwin Lopez is one of the leaders of the FDC based in Negros province.

Opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the ISS or members of the Bliss team.

About the authors:

Cynthia Embido Bejeno is a PhD candidate in Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where she earned Masters in Development Studies major in Women, Gender and Development in 2010. She also earned Masters in Community Development at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Manila in 1998.  Prior to and during her post-graduate studies, she was involved in the social movement in the Philippines and abroad. Her interests include feminism, social movements, justice, human rights, agrarian question, rural development, climate change and sustainable development.

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COVID-19 and Conflict | From the Chilean miracle to hunger protests: how COVID-19 and social conflict responses relate

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COVID-19 broke out in Chile last year in the midst of an intensive social conflict rooted in the deep-seated inequalities caused by the free-market reforms in the country. The case of Chile shows how pre-existing conflict dynamics can be strongly intertwined with pandemic responses as earlier protests for greater equality paved the way for a climate facilitating ‘hunger protests’ during the pandemic. In response to growing mistrust in the state, citizens had a strong social mobilization base that drove collective action.

For many decades, Chile’s development trajectory was considered an inspiration due to its positive macroeconomic results achieved following the implementation of neoliberal policies by the dictatorship in the 1980s and supported by democratic governments to present. However, these policies produced deep inequalities among the population (Flores et al. 2019)[1]. With the eruption of protests in 2019 and the COVID-19 outbreak last year, the idea of a ‘Chilean miracle’ started to fade.

The COVID-19 pandemic reached Chile in the middle of the largest social conflict since the end of its dictatorship in 1990. Starting in October 2019, more than a million of people protested each Friday for five months in the center of Santiago, the capital city, to show their discontent and demand improved livelihood conditions. The response of the government to this movement was brutal, leading to high levels of repression, partial curfews, and large, violent clashes that ended in more than 34 casualties and 445 people with eye injuries (from riot guns wielded by the riot police) between October 2019 and February 2020.

As the mass protests proved, the government ignored the socio-economic problems faced by many sectors of the population. A clear expression of the lack of awareness from the government of the conditions experienced in many low-income neighbourhoods was shown in a public statement made by the former health minister of the country, when he stated in an interview that “[t]here is a level of poverty and overcrowding [in Chile] of which I was not aware”[2].

The measures implemented to address the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 were also an expression of this level of ignorance. One of the first measures to address the COVID-19 outbreak was to implement dynamic quarantines[3], which failed to prevent the virus from spreading from less vulnerable to the most vulnerable populations, instead increasing infection levels and mortality rates[4] (Galarce 2020). The failure of this measure is associated with overcrowding in households, the precarity of wages, and the impossibility for people who survive off a daily income to comply with quarantine measures.

In addition to the complete lockdown that followed the dynamic quarantines, another of the early measures was to implement nighttime curfews. This measure was not well received by citizens, nor by the scientific community, which indicated that the quarantine did not have experts’ approval since there was no proof that it reduced the infection rate. They argued that it was intended to reduce civil liberties[5], and, generally, this measure was seen as an expression of the authoritarian nature of the government.

The inability of the measures to counter the effects of COVID-19 led to multiple demonstrations that were known as ‘hunger protests’. This time, people demanded access to food, water, and shelter as many lost their daily incomes due to the lockdown measures. The hunger protests followed the government’s announcement about the distribution of food baskets. People felt that, again, the government did not understand people’s needs—families could not wait to receive food supplies, but urgently required money to obtain (other) basic goods. The government’s response to the protests was highly repressive once more, mirroring its response to the previous protests back in October 2019.

The countrywide social movement leading protests in 2019 and 2020 articulated different demands and had no centralized leadership. It encouraged self-organized local assemblies (asambleas territoriales) composed of young and elderly people and was founded due to mistrust in the existing institutions. These local assemblies embodied collective organization to resist and shape new relationships and solve immediate problems in the neighbourhoods. The movement that led protests months before COVID-19 emerged therefore played an important role during the pandemic, enabling Chileans to solve difficulties the pandemic and the government’s response to it by themselves through collective action.

One of these initiatives is the so-called ‘ollas comunes’ (‘common pots’)[6] through which people helped stave off hunger by cooking for each other. This measure to respond to the COVID-19 disaster is related to previous responses to social conflicts in Chile. As stated by Clarisa Hardy (1986), the ollas comunes initiative is associated with workers’ layoffs and repression suffered after the 1973 coup d’état that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. Therefore it has a strong component of collective memory. This initiative also proved that the self-organization that arose during the protests could solve immediate problems in a context characterized by high levels of mistrust towards the government in a crucial moment for state intervention like a pandemic. It also opened the possibility to act collectively outside of the common frameworks provided by the state and the market.

References

Hardy, C. 1986. ‘Hambre + Dignidad = Ollas Comunes.’ Accessed August 11, 2020 http://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/archivos2/pdfs/MC0033331.pdf

Flores, I.; Sanhueza, C.; Atria, J. 2019. ‘Top incomes in Chile: a historical perspective on income inequality, 1964-2017’, Review of Income and Wealth, pp. 1-25.

Tinsman, H. 2006. ‘Reviving Feminist Materialism: Gender and Neoliberalism in Pinochet’s Chile,’ The University of Chicago Press  26(1): 145-188.

Foot Notes

[1] Many estimations had been made using different methodologies. All of them are relatively consistent in suggesting that the richest 1% hold between 25%-33% of the national income. For an in-depth discussion, see the following analysis (in Spanish): https://www.ciperchile.cl/2019/12/10/parte-ii-la-desigualdad-es-una-decision-politica/

[2] For the complete declarations, see the following interview (in Spanish): https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/manalich-reconoce-que-en-un-sector-de-santiago-hay-un-nivel-de-pobreza-y-hacinamiento-del-cual-yo-no-tenia-conciencia-de-la-magnitud-que-tenia/5BQZLGLOPVDDPKQ2SNSSSWRGYU/

[3] Dynamic quarantines are those applied to a specific place in a territory (a municipality, for example), and that can be lifted or imposed based on the regular analysis of certain patterns, particularly the number of COVID-19 cases in each place under quarantine.

[4] Galarce, A. (2020, May 19). Experto en salud pública USACH: “Las cuarentenas dinámicas hicieron que el virus migrara hacia una población más vulnerable”. Radiousach.cl.  Accessed August 10, 2020 https://www.radiousach.cl/experto-en-salud-publica-usach-las-cuarentenas-dinamicas-hicieron-que

[5] At the time of publication, the curfews were still imposed, even though the partial lockdowns were lifted and the COVID-19 infection rate diminishing.

[6] “Common pots involve women pooling the food rations of individual families to collectively provide more substantial meals to entire groups of families, workers and neighborhoods” (Tinsman 2006).

.

This research was part of the “When Disaster Meets Conflict” project. It was undertaken between July and September 2020 and comprised the analysis of secondary sources (news and articles related to the Chilean protests of 2019-2020 and the government’s responses to the COVID-19 crisis). Additionally, five semi-structured interviews were carried out. The interviews included key actors from the Chilean private sector, government, and civil society.  The purpose of these interviews was to know these actors’ points of view on the impact and the government’s response to the sanitary crisis

About the authors:

Ana Isabel Alduenda studied International Relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is a current student of the MA in Development Studies at ISS, major Governance and Development Policy. She has worked in the public sector and as a consultant in topics related to government accountability and human rights. Her research interests focus on anti-corruption policies, open data, and gender violence. In addition, she has developed a genuine interest in the social phenomena surrounding pandemics.

Camila Ramos Vilches studied Social Work at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and is a current student of the MA in Development Studies at ISS, major Human Rights, Gender and Conflict Studies: Social Justice Perspectives. She has worked in local NGOs related to grassroots development, and international NGOs related to sustainable development in the private sector. Her research interests focus on gendered analysis within organizations, diversity and inclusion management and sustainable development.

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Covid-19 | Worsening inequality in the developing world: why we should say no to a ‘new normal’

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hunger food insecurity covid corona

As the Covid-19 pandemic drags on, many of us living in wealthy countries are still struggling to get used to the ‘new normal’ of frequent regulatory changes that affect our freedom of movement and well-being. In developing countries, the negative effects of the pandemic move beyond the curtailing of movement to include increasing hunger, unemployment, and inequality. We can now witness some of these seemingly permanent changes that may take years or even decades to reverse, and we should not accept this as a ‘new normal’, write Shradha Parashari and Lize Swartz.

hunger food insecurity covid corona

Introduction

Over the past months, the world has come to experience the unthinkable as the Covid-19 pandemic has swept across the globe (Mahapatra, 2020). The overall outlook for world economy is bleak. According to Economist Intelligence Unit, as from March 17, global economic growth has slowed to just one percent—the lowest level of growth since the global financial crisis of 2008 (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020). The pandemic has affected both the developing and developed world. However, instances of hunger, unemployment and poor access to virus testing and treatment facilities are more prevalent in developing countries (World Food Programme Report, 2020).

Developed countries are taking important measures to protect their people from the Covid-19 virus and consequent slowdown of the economy and life in general by providing unemployment benefits, measures for food security, and privileges such as facilities enabling employees and entrepreneurs to work from home or at a safe distance from one another (Mahapatra, 2020). This is a rare case in the developing world, where governments face challenges in ensuring that tens of millions of people already on verge of starvation do not succumb to virus and its adverse economic consequences, which includes hunger (Dongyu, 2020).

Thus, the pandemic, popularly referred to as the ‘pandemic of inequality’ (Mahaptara, 2020), has exposed existing inequalities and has given rise to new inequalities. According to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres,

COVID-19 has highlighted growing inequalities. It has exposed the myth that everyone is in same boat, when the truth is, we all are floating in same sea; some are in superyachts, while others are clinging to drifting debris.

It is becoming clear that the pandemic is affecting the poor in both the developed and developing world more than wealthier groups, but it is especially the long-term effects of the pandemic in developing countries that remain a cause for concern. The pandemic has created a disruptive ‘new normal’ for everyone through government orders on social distancing and Covid-19 protection measures. Below are just some of the negative effects of this ‘new normal’ that support our argument that it should not be accepted as such.

First, for billions of poor persons, these guidelines are burdensome and impossible to comply with (Du et al., 2020). Poor informal workers in Asia, Africa and Latin America live in densely populated neighbourhoods with unreliable and shared access to water and sanitation facilities, making home quarantine or social distancing almost impossible. These workers lack access to bank accounts, insurance and secure employment that forces them to work on daily basis, defying lockdowns and creating an increased risk of Covid-19 transmission (Du et al., 2020). For them, a ‘new normal’ means not being able to work and meet basic needs.

Second, the hunger crisis is most evident in the central and western parts of Africa, where there has been a massive spike in the number of people facing food insecurity. Up to 90% of people living in Southern Africa are estimated to have become food insecure (World Food Programme Report, 2020). The closure of schools has further aggravated the hunger crisis in the developing world where children are highly dependent on meal programs at schools. For example, in Latin American countries and the Caribbean, the closure of schools during the pandemic has deprived around 85 million children of what is often the only (hot) meal they get daily (Dongyu Qu, 2020). This has led to surging hunger-related poverty during the pandemic. However, this is not the case in Global North, where school closures are simply an inconvenience for most parents.

Moreover, the lockdowns have left millions of workers jobless, especially the informal workforce in the developed and developing world (Daniyal et al., 2020). Workers in developed countries are still better off than those in the developing world as governments in US and Europe have pledged to pump trillions of dollars to support the unemployed workforce (TRT World, 2020). In contrast, the situation is grim in developing countries as informal workers are not covered by any social protection measures or proper employment contracts (TRT World, 2020). Millions of workers in Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and India have faced unemployment as the market remains shut due to the pandemic.

Why we should resist a ‘new normal’

As the pandemic drags on, many people in wealthier countries or those in developing countries with secure jobs or livelihoods, especially those whose lives are disrupted but not severely negatively affected, especially in economic terms, are getting used to the ‘new normal’. For many people, a ‘new normal’ means working from home, not visiting restaurants, not going on holidays outside of our countries, and having to wear a face mask. For millions people who are less fortunate, a ‘new normal’ means a loss of jobs and the inability to secure new employment, going to bed hungry, and working illegally with an exposed risk to the virus.

We have to reject this ‘new normal’ characterized by worsening living conditions and increasing economic inequality before it becomes seen as accepted and a permanent feature of life among poor people in developing and developed countries alike. The search for a vaccine and its global roll-out may take many months still. We have to start think beyond the end of the pandemic to ensure that its negative effects, particularly for people in developing countries, are urgently addressed. If we don’t, the consequences can be far-reaching.

References:

Dongyu Qu, “Coronavirus could worsen hunger in developing world”, World Economic Forum, accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-worsen-hunger-developing-world/

Economist Intelligence Unit, “Coronavirus what we expect for global growth”, accessed September 16, 2020. http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1849161968&Country=United%20States&topic=Economy&subtopic=Recent+developments

Jillian Du, Robin King and Radha Chanchani, “Tackling Inequality in cities is Essential for Fighting COVID-19”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/04/coronavirus-inequality-cities

Richard Mahapatra, “COVID-19: The Pandemic of Inequality”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/economy/covid-19-the-pandemic-of-inequality-72442

Oxfam, “Half a billion people could be pushed into poverty by coronavirus, warns Oxfam”, accessed September 14, 2020. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/half-billion-people-could-be-pushed-poverty-coronavirus-warns-oxfam

Sara Christensen, “Hunger in Developing Countries: Five Facts You Need to Know”, accessed September 16, 2020. https://borgenproject.org/hunger-in-developing-countries-five-facts/

Shoaib Daniyal et al., “As Covid-19 pandemic hits India’s daily-wage earners hard, some leave city for their home towns”, accessed September 16, 2020. https://scroll.in/article/956779/starvation-will-kill-us-before-corona-the-covid-19-pandemic-has-hit-indias-working-class-hard

TRT World. “Coronavirus hits jobs, Millions face unemployment and poverty”, accessed September 15, 2020. Retrieved from TRT World: https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/coronavirus-hits-jobs-millions-face-unemployment-and poverty-35294

Tasfia Jahangir, “The Moral Dilemma of Slum Tourism”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://fundforeducationabroad.org/journals/moral-dilemma-slum-tourism/ 

World Food Programme, “COVID-19: Potential Impact on World’s Poorest People”, accessed September 15, 2020. https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000114205/download/?_ga=2.261738637.121369336.1599543905-1508832003.1599543905

About the authors:

Shradha Parashari is an ISS of Erasmus University Rotterdam alumna of the 2017-2018 batch. She is currently working as a Research and Operation Associate at PAD India.

Lize Swartz

 

Lize Swartz is a PhD researcher at the ISS focusing on water user interactions with sustainability-climate crises in the water sector, in particular the role of water scarcity politics on crisis responses and adaptation processes. She is also the editor of the ISS Blog Bliss.

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COVID-19 | How ‘COVID-19 hunger’ threatens the future of many by Jimena Pacheco

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Empty Plate

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses and lockdowns continue, even more people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition due to their inability to access nutritious food. The pandemic has revealed the importance not only of alleviating immediate hunger produced by the sudden loss of movement and restrictions to economic activity, but also the longer-term effects of a lack of nutrition arising from the inability to access or pay for nutritious food during the pandemic. Children are particularly vulnerable: the lack of an adequate diet can lead to persistent losses in health, education and productivity that can have lasting effects. The after-effects of the pandemic could be more severe than its immediate effects, writes Jimena Pacheco.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that the COVID-19 crisis will expose 265 million people to the threat of severe hunger. The effects of the increase of hunger worldwide could be more catastrophic than the virus itself on the long run. Hence, it is of the utmost importance to implement policies that fight the pandemic from a holistic and intertemporal perspective, including the challenges presented by the accompanying hunger crisis.

According to the IMF, the global economy will suffer a downturn of -3% in 2020, pushing 200 million people out of employment.[1] In addition, millions of self-employed and informal workers will suffer from the abrupt interruption of their income flows brought about by illness or measures to curb virus transmission, including total lockdowns that prevent the normal circulation of people, goods, and services. In addition to the contraction of household income, the prices of cereals and other foodstuffs have increased as a result of trade barriers and difficulties transporting goods due to the lockdowns. As a consequence, we observe a deterioration in the nutrient intake of the population.[2]

Both the quantity and quality of calories are affected. The disruption in food markets has decreased access to vegetables, fruits, and proteins. These food products are labour intensive and need good storage and good distribution logistics, all of which have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. In addition to supply shortages[3], the mobility restrictions and volatility of the price of quality food products, as well as sudden income cuts, have pushed households to consume more perishable, cheaper, and less nutritious foods.[4]

But not only the direct effects of interrupted distribution chains are visible in the nutrient intake patterns of the poorest populations. The most vulnerable populations usually live in resource-poor countries with weak fiscal finances, tight health budgets, and high debts. The coronavirus crisis has led these countries to reallocate resources to fight the pandemic, leading to the neglect or interruption of state-driven food programs. Children who were able to receive a square meal at schools can no longer do so, and food- and cash-transfer programs have also been interrupted. The WFP estimates that the school closures and mobility restrictions have prevented 368 million children from receiving meals through school food programs worldwide—a devastating observation. While some countries have ensured that children remain fed, there are no data available on the coverage and quality of those alternative solutions.[5]

Poor childhood nutrition has lasting effects

It is not only the immediate hunger caused by the COVID-19 crisis that is worrisome. The insufficient intake of nutrients during childhood increases vulnerability to infectious diseases, and starvation leads to premature death. Those children who survive are likely to face the lifelong impacts of malnutrition. Malnutrition during childhood generates changes in an individual’s metabolism to save energy. Furthermore, women who have suffered starvation during childhood are shorter and have a higher probability of giving birth to babies with a low birth weight. Besides, children who did not have sufficient nutrients during childhood perform worse in school and are less productive as adults. All these mechanisms that are being fed by coronavirus responses will generate long-term impacts that are likely to persist for more than one generation if we do not counteract the ‘COVID hunger’ now.

The way forward: immediate action and long-term monitoring

The need for timely and adequate policies to prevent hunger and starvation is pressing. Bodies such as the FAO and WFP have suggested a number of measures that can be implemented to combat immediate hunger and a longer-term lack of adequate nutrition linked to economic losses and poverty. These include:

  • Installing emergency cash transfers that smooth the income shocks of the vulnerable households
  • Assuring the correct functioning of food markets by decreasing barriers for food trade
  • Improving dietary quality, among others, by assuring the access to vegetables, fruits, and meat at affordable prices in local markets, or increasing the quantity and quality of school meals
  • Supporting maternal services by strengthening public health services, especially regarding the access to nutrition supplements
  • Promoting homestead food production.

However, the implementation of these recommendations does not seem feasible in countries that are resource strapped and already fail to invest in quality nutrition, healthcare, and food-producing agriculture.[6] We need commitment from governments and international organizations to allocate enough resources to fight hunger today in order to avoid future costs for society. Furthermore, we have to assure that the response to the ‘COVID-19 hunger’ and the monitoring of its effects persist long after the pandemic has ended.

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Natascha Wagner for her thoughtful feedback on an earlier draft of this post.

[1] Also see https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_740877.pdf
[2] The situation is especially difficult in urban areas, where households are unable to smooth the consumption shock through household-level food production.
[3] There are even more channels that contribute to rising hunger and lack of food supplies—the pandemic stopped the movement of migrant workers involved in harvesting activities, resulting in a loss of production for many farmers because of a lack of workers to pick vegetables.
[4] Nutritious food can be 10 times more expensive than basic calories as a result of COVID-19.
[5] For example, in Madrid, the municipality controversially signed a contract with a fast-food provider to cover the meals for vulnerable children. Health institutions and families have raised complaints about the nutritional quality of these meals that the children received for almost two months. See https://elpais.com/espana/madrid/2020-05-03/las-pizzas-de-ayuso-y-algunos-kilos-de-mas.html [in Spanish].
[6] World Bank data show that on average around 7% of a country’s GDP is dedicated to healthcare. For OECD countries it reaches 10%, while it is under 5% in Latin America and Southeast Asia. In the least-developed countries, the expenditure in healthcare is as low as 1% of a country’s GDP. See https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.GHED.GD.ZS.
Title Image Credit: Jimena Pacheco

This article is part of a series about the coronavirus crisis. Read all articles of this series here.

Jimena PachecoAbout the authors:

Jimena Pacheco is a development economics Ph.D. candidate at the ISS. Her research interests rely in development, health and education economics. Currently, she is working in the impact of negative shocks -economic and natural crisis- in human capital formation in Ecuador and Spain as main cases.

 

Deglobalisation Series | (de)globalisation and the fear of trade by Ana Cristina Canales Gomez

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While the consequences of globalisation over health and nutrition can be contradictory, trade openness can be a relevant policy for reducing food insecurity. This relatively inexpensive action, when compared to technology or research-based programmes, can increase the availability of nutritional foods, increase higher nutritional variety in diets, and can stabilise the food supply, reducing food shortages.

“One of the biggest ideas to hit the political world in recent years is that politics is increasingly defined by the division between open and closed, rather than left and right” (The Economist, March 24, 2018)

The recent trend of pushing against globalisation is based on different sources of information that varies from science-based evidence to ideas that trade and global agreements form part of a mastermind plan of invisible benefactors of the globalisation system. This phenomenon of deglobalisation has occurred before, but a major difference can be seen between the current and previous manifestations: in the 1930s, deglobalisation was pushed by governments, while the current expression of deglobalisation is pushed by the general public through social media.

When it comes to health and nutrition, the matter of globalisation and its impacts can be somewhat contradictory, and as with most economic matters, the perception of globalisation will depend on the viewer’s position: if you are in the LDCs where malnutrition is a leading cause of mortality, hinders development and entails national losses of around 6% of GDP[1], you might see globalisation as a beacon that could signal the introduction of greater nutritional diversity to local diets. If, on the other hand, you live in countries such as Chile or Mexico where undernourishment is no longer the main issue and the country now faces a transitional economic phase wherein obesity becomes a cause of concern, the increased inflow of foods from countries such as the United States might be viewed in a more negative light—as an influx of unhealthy types of food that contribute to obesity (Giuntella 2017).

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Graph 1 Changes in trade (% of GDP) and the prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years of age, world level. Source: author’s elaboration using STATA and the WDI (Last updated January 25, 2018).

From a descriptive perspective, during the last 30 years, and particularly after the Marrakech negotiations that led to the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its agreements, there has been an increase in trade openness and a reduction in the prevalence of stunting (PAHO 2017), even though hunger is still the leading cause of death and primary contributor to disease worldwide (Pongou et al. 2006).

We can assess the impact of trade openness using the Depth of the Food Deficit (DFD), an outcome indicator that measures inadequate access to food (Reddy et al. 2016, Santeramo 2015) by determining the amount of calories needed to lift the undernourished out of this position, ceteris paribus (Reddy et al. 2016, World Bank Group. 2017, Dithmer and Abdulai 2017).

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Table 1: Effect of the import and export value indexes (2000=100) over the depth of the food Deficit (kcal per person per day), world level.

Table 1 shows the effect of Export and Import Value Indexes, included in logarithmic form, over the DFD. There is overall a strong and significant relation between both values and the indicator: an increase of one percentage point of the Import Value Indexes reduces the Depth of the Food Deficit in a range of 21 to 37 kilocalories, such change being consistent to the inclusion of all controls. Hence, a reduction of the DFD responding to an increase in both exported and imported values speaks of narrowing gaps between current nutritional status and the average dietary energy requirements of the population, and can contribute to SDG2—Zero Hunger.

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Table 2: Effect of import and export Values (2000=100) over depth of the food deficit (kcal per person per day) in Latin American countries (excluding Haiti, Cuba and the Small Caribbean States).

The same regression can be run for the Latin American countries, including a variable constructed by the author measuring the number of food security programmes per country per year. The impact of trade openness over DFD is still strong and relevant in magnitude, and there is a linear albeit insignificant relation where programmes reduce the prevalence of undernutrition. When the quadratic variable is applied it hints—the coefficients are not significant—that such an effect only goes so far, and that, after a breaking point, these programmes show detrimental results.

Considering all of the above, the evidence shows that trade openness is in fact a relevant policy when it comes to reducing food insecurity, increasing social wellbeing and leading to socioeconomic progress. Furthermore, it would seem that trade openness is a more effective tool than the implementation of specific programmes that attempt to target food insecurity that many times end up doing more harm than good. This could be explained by the fact that there is a trend towards the indiscriminate adoption of programmes, both local and foreign. Additionally, more programmes usually signal the lack of effective stakeholder coordination, the lack of continuity in governmental strategies, and the inefficient expenditure of available resources.

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Table 3: Effect of export and import Values (2000=100) over obesity prevalence for children under 5 years of age, world level.

When it comes to obesity, our research shows inconclusive results: there is a significant albeit small effect of trade openness—both export and import values—on the prevalence of obesity, but this effect fades when controls are included in the models. This can be due to the fact that obesity is a more recent phenomenon and besides integration of economies into global markets responds to many factors, such as economic growth, urbanisation trends, and the rise of the middle class (PAHO 2017).

Conclusion

While the consequences of globalisation over health and nutrition can be contradictory, it is an effective tool for the reduction of hunger, currently the leading cause of death in the world. This relatively inexpensive action, when compared to technology or research-based programmes, can increase the availability of nutritional foods, increase higher nutritional variety in diets, and can stabilise the food supply, reducing shortages in times of dearth. Overall, opening up to trade, at least from the health and nutrition perspective, seems to be a policy worth trying, but there is only so much that trade can do without a strong institutional background.

[1] Which is the case for Central America and the Dominican Republic according to the CEPAL (as cited by Jara Navarro (2008: 9)

[2] According to the WHO, stunting is defined as the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age ratio is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median.

References
Dithmer, J. and A. Abdulai (2017) ‘Does Trade Openness Contribute to Food Security? A Dynamic Panel Analysis’, Food Policy 69: 218-230.
Giuntella, O., M. Rieger and L. Rotunno (2017) ‘Weight Gains from Trade in Foods: Evidence from Mexico’, University of Pittsburgh, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. Working Paper Series 17/010 Weight gains from trade in foods: Evidence from Mexico. 17/010.
Jara Navarro, M.I. (2008) ‘Hambre, Desnutrición y Anemia: Una Grave Situación De Salud Pública’, Revista Gerencia y Políticas de Salud 7(15): 7-10.
PAHO (Last updated 2017) ‘Sobrepeso Afecta a Casi La Mitad De La Población De Todos Los Países De América Latina y El Caribe Salvo Por Haití’ (a webpage of PAHO/WHO). Accessed April 12 2017 <http://www.paho.org/chi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=856:sobrepeso-afecta-a-casi-la-mitad-de-la-poblacion-de-todos-los-paises-de-america-latina-y-el-caribe-salvo-por-haiti&Itemid=1005&gt;.
Pongou, R., J.A. Salomon and M. Ezzati (2006) ‘Health Impacts of Macroeconomic Crises and Policies: Determinants of Variation in Childhood Malnutrition Trends in Cameroon’, International journal of epidemiology 35(3): 648-656.
Reddy, A.A., C.R. Rani, T. Cadman, S.N. Kumar and A.N. Reddy (2016) ‘Towards Sustainable Indicators of Food and Nutritional Outcomes in India’, World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development 13(2): 128-142.
Santeramo, F.G. (2015) ‘On the Composite Indicators for Food Security: Decisions Matter!’, Food Reviews International 31(1): 63.
The Economist (2018) ‘Bagehot: Rethinking Open v Closed’, The Economist March 24th-30th 2018 9084: 33.
WHO (Last updated 2017) ‘Noncommunicable Diseases’ (a webpage of WHO Media Centre). Accessed April 12 2018 <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs355/en/&gt;.
Winters, L.A. (2004) ‘Trade Liberalisation and Economic Performance: An Overview’, The Economic Journal 114(493).
World Bank (Last updated 2018) ‘World Development Indicators’ (a webpage of The World Bank). Accessed March 1 2018 <http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators#&gt;.

0894f1c-2.jpgAbout the author:

Ana Cristina Canales Gómez is a veterinarian at the Universidad de Chile who holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from the same institution and a Masters degree in Development Studies from the ISS. Currently, she works as a consultant for Food & Foodstuffs Trade and Nutrition Policies in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).