2020

From August to October 2020, about 3.7 million people were facing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above), and therefore, required urgent action. This figure will likely decrease to 2.7 million people between November 2020 and March 2021. Until October 2020, the departments classified as being in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) were: Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Chimaltenango, Chiquimula, El Progreso, Huehuetenango, Jalapa, Jutiapa, Quetzaltenango, Quiché, San Marcos, Santa Rosa, Sololá, Suchitepéquez, Totonicapán and Zacapa. The economic effects of the COVID-19 mitigation measures have been counteracted by state and private humanitarian aid, preventing a greater severity of acute food insecurity in most departments.

In countries where WFP operates, COVID-19 could push an additional 121 million people into acute food insecurity by the end of 2020. Considering that 149 million people were already acutely food insecure pre-COVID (including 12 million refugees), this would lead to a total of 270 million people facing acute food insecurity by the end of the year, an increase of more than 80 percent. Pre-COVID-19, the Middle East and North Africa had the highest number of acutely food insecure people – mainly due to conflict, displacement and economic crisis. Latin America and West Africa are expected to have the highest increase of additional people facing acute hunger due to COVID-19. In West Africa, the number of acutely food insecure people could more than double while in Latin America, the number of people with acute food insecurity could nearly triple. Countries of particular concern are those affected by protracted conflict or faced with other compounding shocks such as economic crisis, locust infestation, droughts or other disasters.

Global food security has been deteriorating in recent years due to conflicts, climate shocks, economic downturns and desert locust. The COVID-19 pandemic could drive up the increase in acute hunger over the past four years to more than 80 percent. The global economic outlook looks increasingly grim, reflected in the IMF’s revision of its estimates to -4.9 percent global GDP contraction in 2020, 2.1 percentage points below the April forecast. Moreover, the geographic spread of COVID-19 cases has
continued to evolve – and with it the challenges that poor countries face (Figure 1). After China, Europe and the US, Latin America has emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic. South Asia’s curve of weekly new cases has a worryingly steep slope too. As of mid-June, two out of three new confirmed cases are in low- and middle-income countries. While these countries are trying to cope with the fallout of an increasingly severe global economic recession, they are also battling the disease at home.
This brief, therefore, shifts attention from the external to the domestic shock, complementing the analysis of countries at risk of worsening food insecurity in earlier updates.

The costs of food baskets were affected 'severely' in 20 countries in Q2-2020, during which the COVID-19 pandemic has played a major role. Most notably, despite massive income losses, strong demand resulting from stockpiling in combination with disrupted trade flows led to steep increases in staple food prices in Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.

FAO assesses that globally 44 countries, of which 34 are in Africa, continue to be in need of external assistance for food. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are causing wide‑ranging and severe negative impacts on food security, particularly through the loss of income. Conflicts and weather shocks remain critical factors that underpin the current high levels of severe food insecurity.

Food markets will face many more months of uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while most markets are braced for a major global economic downturn, the agri-food sector is likely to display more resilience to the crisis than other sectors.

FAO assesses that globally 44 countries, of which 34 are in Africa, continue to be in need of external assistance for food. Agricultural droughts have aggravated food insecurity conditions, due to reduced harvests that also caused price hikes. Conflict driven crises continued to be the primary cause of the high levels of severe food insecurity.