The COVID-19 pandemic and food security in low- and middle-income countries: a review.

We review findings from the emerging microeconomic literature on observed changes in food insecurity associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, we focus our review on studies in low- and middle-income countries that include household survey data measuring food insecurity collected both before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We first focus on several studies-seven from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and one from India-that estimate immediate changes in food insecurity associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Food insecurity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in four African countries.

We document trends in food security up to one full year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in four African countries. Using household-level data collected by the World Bank, we highlight differences over time amid the pandemic, between rural and urban areas, and between female-headed and male-headed households within Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria. We first observe a sharp increase in food insecurity during the early months of the pandemic with a subsequent gradual decline.

The coronavirus pandemic and food security: Evidence from Mali.

This paper documents some of the first estimates of changes in experienced food insecurity associated with the coronavirus pandemic in a low-income country. It combines nationally representative pre-pandemic household survey data with follow-up phone survey data from Mali and examines sub-national variation in the intensity of pandemic-related disruptions between urban and rural areas. Although rural households are more likely to experience food insecurity prior to the pandemic, we find that food insecurity increased more in urban areas than in rural areas.

COVID-19 and conflict.

What does the threat of and the policy response to the coronavirus pandemic mean for inter-group conflict worldwide? We examine time series trends for different types of conflict and evaluate discernible changes taking place as global awareness of COVID-19 spread. At the country level, we examine changes in trends following policy responses, such as lockdowns, curfews, or ceasefires. We specifically examine violent conflict events (e.