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10 July 2020

IED-HSC Team Leading FAO Rapid Assessment of Covid-19 impacts on Agro-food System in South Africa

Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) is implementing a largescale programme for effective food and nutrition security interventions in the context of Covid19. This support aims to strengthen the capacity of the leading public institution, The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), in coordinating effective responses to Covid19 induced hunger.

The FAO and DALRRD recently commissioned rapid assessments on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on agriculture, the food system and food and nutrition security (FNS) in South Africa. A team in IED and HSC, under the leadership Peter Jacobs and Admire Nyamwanza, have been contracted to conduct Phase-1 of this major study. This HSRC work package focuses on a contextual synthesis of adequate food access among vulnerable people and a rapid mobile-phone survey among informal traders across all provinces since the start of pandemic in South Africa.

This rapid assessment and the subsequent follow-up phases of the study will be linked to the work of the South African Vulnerability Assessment Committee (SAVAC) on the state of food and nutrition security in the country. The study also partly fulfils undertakings made by the South African and other African governments in the FAO/AU Agricultural Ministers Declaration, signed on April 16 2020, towards identifying actions and measures to minimize the effects of COVID-19 on Africa’s food systems.

Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)

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