Zambia and Zimbabwe have experienced food security emergencies of varying severity, mainly caused by drought and floods in some areas. Like several countries in Africa and elsewhere, the two countries have developed and used Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR) to cope with food emergencies and other functions to ensure the availability of food.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has issued the Food Security (Assistance to State Governments) (Amendment) Rules, 2021 to further amend the Food Security (Assistance to State Governments) Rules, 2015.

Climate extremes are a major impediment to resilience of food systems in Southern Africa, where livelihoods and economies are highly sensitive to weather fluctuations.

The food and nutrition security in the country has improved significantly in tandem with the harvest period and increased household access to food mainly cereals, pulses, vegetables and tubers from own production.

Given the chronic food insecurity and malnutrition prevalent in the Southern African region, this paper analyses the role of food security and nutrition in social protection programming and in bridging the humanitarian- development divide using the COVID-19 experience of several countries in the region.

The Ugandan economy is recovering from a sharp contraction due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) shock that had slowed growth to its lowest pace in over three decades. Real GDP growth is estimated to reach above 3 percent during FY21, following the modest recovery of 0.7 percent in the first half of the FY.

The South Sudan economy is projected to contract by 4.1 percent in FY2020/21, with growth negatively affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, lower oil production, floods, and increased conflict intensity in parts of the country.

Climate change is a growing challenge for food systems around the world, presenting both changing trends and increased variability in temperatures and precipitation.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent enforcement of mobility restrictions have created bottlenecks in the agri-food system. When the food supply chain is disrupted, economic loss occurs, putting rural households, already in poverty, into severe food insecurity.

This is the third Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis in Sierra Leone evidencing trend analysis that spans over ten years. The 2020 food security and vulnerability analysis was conducted eight months after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Sierra Leone.