Nutrition-sensitive lockdowns: conceptual framework and empirical insights from Africa during COVID-19.

Motivation: Countries facing challenges of nutrition security confront a trade-off when dealing with pandemics such as COVID-19. Implementing lockdown measures, widely used worldwide, can help "flatten the curve" (of disease), but such measures may worsen nutrition security.

Purpose: We aim to identify and justify nutrition-sensitive lockdown measures to reduce trade-offs with nutrition security.

'We would rather die from Covid-19 than from hunger' - Exploring lockdown stringencies in five African countries.

Facing COVID-19, African countries were confronted with a dilemma: enacting strict lockdowns to "flatten the curve" could potentially have large effects on food security. Given this catch-22 situation, there was widespread concern that Africa would suffer most from the pandemic. Yet, emerging evidence in early 2021 showed that COVID-19 morbidity remained low, while "biblical famines" have been avoided so far.

Fruits and Vegetables in International Agricultural Research: A Case of Neglect?

Fruits and vegetables (F+Vs) can play an important role in combatting the problem of the double burden of malnutrition. Agricultural research can help to increase the productivity and the resource-use efficiency of fruit and vegetable production and, thus, reduce prices so that these commodities can become more available to poor households. However, the crops research of the international agricultural research system, including its centerpiece the CGIAR, has so far concentrated mainly on staple grains and starchy food crops, while largely neglecting most F+Vs.

Impact of Ethiopia's productive safety net program on household food security and child nutrition: A marginal structural modeling approach.

Safety nets are expanding in African countries as a policy instrument to alleviate poverty and food insecurity. Whether safety nets have improved household food security and child diet and nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa has not been well documented. This paper takes the case of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) and provides evidence of the impact of safety nets on household food security and child nutritional outcomes.