Using large-scale phone survey data collected throughout 2021 in four African countries (Uganda, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Mozambique), this paper examines the impact of COVID-19 exposure on food security.
The authors, including ISDC’s Damier Esenaliev, Ghassan Baliki, Wolfgang Stojetz, and Tilman Brück, introduce a micro-level measure of ‘COVID-19 exposure’ and use a heteroskedasticity-based IV method to mitigate potential endogeneity concerns.
Among other key findings, the study reveals that, during this period, one in two households faced moderate-to-severe food insecurity, with particularly pronounced impacts among households characterized by large family sizes, limited access to public services, fewer assets, and with female, younger, and less-educated household heads.
Moreover, vulnerable households often lacked financial support from governments, leading them to adopt harmful coping strategies. Our analysis offers nuanced insights into the mechanisms linking individual pandemic exposure to food insecurity and provides valuable implications for designing targeted policy interventions to protect vulnerable households in low- and middle-income countries.
