COVID-19 is a global health crisis that has caused a shock to food and agricultural systems around the world, affecting production, supply chains, trade, markets, and people’s livelihoods and nutrition.

An Act further to amend the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. This Act may be called the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

This report seeks to advance the actionable understanding of an emerging set of approaches for data-driven food systems across stakeholders. It explores opportunities for data to enable better decision-making, advance business, product and partnership models, and empower stakeholders across the value chain.

A World in Disorder, issued by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), an independent monitoring and accountability body which prepares for global health crises, (GPMB), notes that the coronavirus has killed close to a million people, impacting health systems, food supplies and economies.

Urban populations are growing faster in Africa than all other regions of the world. Feeding Africa’s cities, and providing access to good quality food, presents a major challenge but also a major opportunity to the continent’s 60 million farms.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on face-to-face interactions and the movement of persons (the ‘lockdowns’) produced a widespread crisis of hunger, felt most acutely by migrant workers and those who were outside the reach of India’s highly organised but rigid Public Distribution System (PDS).

Humanitarian food assistance needs are high across Somalia, where Stressed (IPC Phase 2) and Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes remain widespread. An estimated 3.5 million people in rural livelihood zones, urban areas, and IDP settlements need food assistance. In July, food assistance reached only 55 percent of the population in need.

The ongoing conflict in north-east Nigeria, now entering its eleventh year, and the upsurge in violent attacks witnessed over the past year in the crisis-affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe have deepened humanitarian needs. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbates the situation and risks wreaking havoc on the most vulnerable population.

Based on information from 25 countries of operation, Action Against Hunger is highly alarmed at how COVID-19 is impacting food and health systems and its impact on people.

The Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) is committed to support the food industry contribution to addressing the world’s nutrition challenges, leveraging its power to provide accessible and affordable healthy food to all.