This study assesses the impact of COVID-19 on poverty, food insecurity and diets, accounting for the complex links between the crisis and the incomes and living costs of vulnerable households.

In the event of large swings in world food prices, countries often intervene to dampen the impact of international food price spikes on domestic prices and to lessen the burden of adjustment on vulnerable population groups.

Sub-Saharan African exports of horticultural and processed agricultural products are growing in line with the major shift toward these products in world markets. Continued growth in such exports may be vitally important for expanding returns from African agriculture and for increasing Africa’s overall exports.

This study uses household models based on detailed expenditure and agricultural production data from 31 developing countries to assess the impacts of changes in global food prices on poverty in individual countries and for the world as a whole.

In many poor countries, the recent increases in prices of staple foods raise the real incomes of those selling food, many of whom are relatively poor, while hurting net food consumers, many of whom are also relatively poor. The impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse, but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects, and can only be determined by looking at real-world data. Results using household data for ten observations on nine low-income countries