Resilience

Abstract: African agriculture is yet to reach its full food production potential. One way of addressing this is a better distribution of market signals to farmers and other market participants, which can help them make better-informed decisions, leading to increased income and capacity for investment. Hence, increasing the availability of market information in Africa is a priority and alternative data sources, and new Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) offer huge potential to complement classic official statistics. This has given rise to a number of ICTs and citizen science projects to monitor data in real time, of which food price crowdsourcing in Africa is one. However, one of the main challenges faced by crowdsourcing initiatives is to ensure that individuals feed useful information into the system. In this paper, we test the potential of behavioural interventions to help sustain crowd contributions by leveraging intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivations. We used two randomised control trials (RCTs) to evaluate whether the inclusion of two nudges (one based on social norms and one based on information disclosure) in the design of a food price crowdsourcing initiative can improve crowd engagement. Our results show that social norms increase crowd participation while disclosing price information does not. The latter highlights the need for further research to identify which type of information and format to make it accessible would best help to sustain crowd effort levels. These findings have the potential to be useful in designing future crowdsourcing (or other types of) initiatives that require sustained citizen engagement over time.

Abstract: This report presents the resilience dashboards2 developed by the European Commission in a process of collective intelligence with Member States and other relevant stakeholders, as a follow up to the 2020 Strategic Foresight Report3 . The resilience dashboards are an innovative monitoring tool for the transition-led EU policy agenda. They provide a holistic assessment of the ability to progress amid challenges, across four dimensions: social and economic, green, digital, and geopolitical. The resilience dashboards are part of the Commission’s effort to embed strategic foresight into policymaking, as the selection of the indicators takes a forward-looking perspective. Shedding light on important ingredients for successful transitions and coping with shocks, the dashboards contribute to an integrated approach for measuring people’s well-being beyond GDP. The dashboards contain a battery of quantitative indicators from publicly available data sources, chosen in coherence with other Commission monitoring tools. They depict vulnerabilities (features that can exacerbate the negative impact of crises and transitions, or obstacles that may hinder the achievement of long-term strategic goals) and capacities (enablers or abilities to cope with crises and structural changes and to manage the transitions). They are developed to help Member States self-assess and identify areas for further analysis and policy action. As highlighted in the 2021 Strategic Foresight Report4 , they will also contribute to the ex-post assessment of Europe’s recovery and resilience strategy. The dashboards follow a relative assessment approach and do not aim to rank countries. They also cover a number of non-EU countries, to assess the resilience of the EU as a whole compared with other countries outside the Union. The resilience dashboards will be regularly updated and reviewed in a collaborative manner.

Abstract: The resilience dashboards, both at Member State and global level, present an assessment of country vulnerabilities and capacities in relative terms. They use a scale of five colours , which indicates each country’s relative situation in the latest available year (usually 2018-2020), compared to the collection of values of that indicator for all Member States and all years in the reference period 2007-20173 . In the digital dashboard and for one specific technology-related indicator in the green dashboard , we have imposed the reference period of 2015-2020, because of the fast pace of technological development

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdown measures have disrupted food supply chains globally and caused threats to food security, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet detailed, localized, and timely data on food security threats are rarely available to guide targeted policy interventions. Based on real-time evidence from a pilot project in northern Nigeria, where food insecurity is severe, we illustrate how a digital crowdsourcing platform can provide validated real-time, high frequency, and spatially rich information on the evolution of commodity prices. Daily georeferenced price data of major food commodities were submitted by active volunteer citizens through a mobile phone data collection app and filtered through a stepwise quality control algorithm. We analyzed a total of 23,961 spatially distributed datapoints, contributed by 236 active volunteers, on the price of four commodities (local rice, Thailand rice, white maize and yellow maize) to assess the magnitude of price change over eleven weeks (week 20 to week 30) during and after the first COVID-related lockdown (year 2020), relative to the preceding year (2019). Results show that the retail price of maize (yellow and white) and rice (local and Thailand rice) increased on average by respectively 26% and 44% during this COVID-related period, compared to prices reported in the same period in 2019. GPS-tracked data showed that mobility and market access of active volunteers were reduced, travel-distance to market being 54% less in 2020 compared to 2019, and illustrates potential limitations on consumers who often seek lower pricing by accessing broader markets. Combining the price data with a spatial richness index grid derived from UN-FAO, this study shows the viability of a contactless data crowdsourcing system, backed by an automated quality control process, as a decision-support tool for rapid assessment of price-induced food insecurity risks, and to target interventions (e.g. COVID relief support) at the right time and location(s).

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all Sub-Saharan economies through a multitude of impact channels. The study determines the medium-term macroeconomic outcomes of the pandemic on the Kenyan economy and links the results with a detailed food security and nutrition microsimulation module. It thus evaluates the effectiveness of the adopted government measures to reduce the negative outcomes on food security and to enable economic recovery at aggregate, sectoral and household levels. Through income support measures, the food sector and food demand partially recover. However, 1.3% of households still fall below calorie intake thresholds, many of which are in rural areas. Results also indicate that the state of food security in Kenya remains vulnerable to the evolution of the pandemic abroad.

Abstract: The report on the EU agricultural outlook for markets, income and the environment presents how EU agriculture can be expected to cope with opportunities and challenges in the upcoming decade. The preparation of this edition was affected in particular by the COVID-19 crisis. Several assumptions were made for the path to global and EU economic recoveries, and some scenarios were prepared to illustrate alternative recovery pathways. Overall, the impact of the crisis on food markets has remained limited thanks to the resilience of the food chain. The emerging pattern seems to be one of reinforcement of some pre-existing trends rather than a complete overhaul of the food system, with for instance an increase in e-commerce food sales and greater demand for locally produced food and short supply chains. Nutritional value, origin and health concerns are prominent among drivers of consumer choice, together with environment and climate change. In this context, the sustainability aspects of EU farming and food production were strengthened in political discussions on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy and delivery of the European Green Deal objectives. As the trilogues on the CAP legislative proposals post-2020 are ongoing between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, neither the CAP reform nor specific targets (and policy settings) are considered in this report. Nevertheless, some market assumptions are made to reflect on ongoing initiatives and publicised strategies in several sectors. Therefore, this report provides to the greatest extent possible a reliable measure of EU agriculture’s contribution to sustainable food and farming, using the most plausible assumptions available. Growth in EU production of arable crops is expected to be limited. Land competition, coupled with the expansion of forest and pasture areas, will limit the available land for arable crops. On the other hand, enhanced farming practices and continuous research and development will support growth in yields. Digitisation will increasingly be at the core of yield productivity gains, improved labour conditions and high environmental standards. In the animal sectors, sustainability objectives are expected to be an integral part of production growth, with action to be taken all along the food chain. EU milk production could grow more slowly than in the past, with increasing presence of non-conventional production systems (e.g. pasture-based, GM-free fed, organic). Nevertheless, the EU is to remain the largest dairy exporter. On meats, consumers could prefer more poultry meat as it is perceived as being healthier than pigmeat and beef and more convenient to prepare. In specialised crops too, health awareness and convenience are to drive increasing demand for fruit and vegetables. Consumers’ preference for sparkling wine and wine with a lower alcohol content could limit the decline of wine consumption. In the olive oil sector, EU non-producing countries and export markets should increase their importance in an overall market balance. Projections have been made based on a European Union of 27 Member States. Only ratified free trade agreements are taken into account.

Abstract: This technical report assesses the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the economic performance and poverty incidence in Ethiopia for 2019/20 and 2020/21. It takes into account the impacts of the pandemic on four channels: a) factor productivity, b) trade costs, c) export demand and tourism, and d) remittances and FDI. Through the inclusion of the Ethiopian government responses of stimulus spending, job protection and business support, the report evaluates the effectiveness of these measures for the economic recovery to pre-COVID-19 pathways. By using a macroeconomic multi-sectoral model, the study includes results at national (GDP, supply, demand, trade), sectoral (output and prices) and household (welfare) levels. The household food expenditure results are then included as income measures in a poverty analysis module to further characterise the effects of the pandemic on poverty headcount, gap and severity. In annualised terms, the modelling results show that the COVID-19 impacts could have been significant across all macroeconomic metrics had the government not intervened. The GDP would have decreased from pre-COVID-19 projections by -11.1% in 2019/20 and -6.7% in 2020/21, with severe implications for employment and household welfare. The government response consisting in increased spending (healthcare and food programmes) and salary payments to prevent job losses may have had an important role in improving the macroeconomic outcomes of the pandemic in 2019/20. Nevertheless, much of the aggregate recovery (GDP, employment and welfare) is driven by agriculture as output in most manufacturing, construction and services sectors continue to be affected by productivity shocks and low demand. Therefore, employment and output outside agriculture could still be below the pre-COVID-19 projections even when additional business support measures are included. Without government intervention, the poverty headcount would have increased by about 5% in total population. The government measures are projected to mitigate that effect to a large extent and to allow national poverty levels to reach pre-COVID-19 values in 2020/21 or to even fall below in case of an enhanced business stimulus package from the government. Nevertheless, poor urban households continue to be negatively affected and would require more targeted support.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to multiple disruptions in food demand and supply, and while in general food systems have proven more resilient than many expected so far, the poor and vulnerable have been hit hardest. In this regard, food prices are a critical indicator. Most food price tracking systems aggregate data that may miss short-term price spikes in specific locations—information that could be used to target relief. Here, researchers from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture describe the development of a crowdsourcing tool for collecting real-time local price data. They used it to capture food prices in locations in northern Nigeria during a 4-week pandemic lockdown period, showing important temporal and spatial price variations for staple foods. Based on their experience, they discuss the benefits and challenges, in emergencies and more generally, of crowdsourcing approaches for food prices.—John McDermott, series co-editor and Director, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).

Abstract: This paper analyses the impacts on global agricultural markets of the demand shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the first wave of lockdown measures imposed by the governments in the first semester of 2020 to contain it. Specifically, we perform a scenario-based analysis on the IMF economic growth forecasts for 2020 and 2021 using a global multi-commodity agricultural market model. According to our results, the sharp decline in economic growth causes a decrease in international meat prices by 7–18% in 2020 and dairy products by 4–7% compared to a business as usual situation. Following the slowdown of the economy, biofuel prices fall strongly in 2020, followed by their main feedstocks, maize and oilseeds. Although the income losses and local supply chain disruptions associated with the pandemic undoubtedly has led to an increase in food insecurity in many developing countries, global food consumption is largely unaffected due to the inelastic demand of most agricultural commodities and the short duration of the shock. From an environmental viewpoint, the COVID19 impacts point to a modest reduction of direct greenhouse gases from agriculture of about 1% or 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2020 and 2021.

Abstract: This technical report focuses on the short-term implications on the wider Kenyan economy of the COVID-19 lockdown by taking into account several impact channels (labour productivity, export demand and tourism, remittances, internal demand and internal trade costs). It considers the uncertainty of lockdown durations both domestically and abroad and incorporates the government fiscal and spending measures implemented through the Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 2020, the COVID Spending Plan and the Economic Stimulus Plan. In annualised terms, the modelling results of this study show that the April-June lockdown in Kenya would have an impact of 5.6% in GDP in 2020 relative to the pre-COVID baseline leading to close to zero economic growth for the year. The main drivers of the reduction in economic activity are the drops in labour productivity, in export commodities and in tourism. The GDP decrease is accompanied by a depreciation of the Kenya Shilling (KSh), a reduction of domestic investment and an increase in government deficit by 17.2 billion KSh. Employment reduces by 11.8% and real income decreases by 7.9% and 6.8% for rural and urban households respectively. The lower income determines a decrease in domestic demand and lowers market prices for the majority of commodities. The impacts of the pandemic would be amplified if a new COVID-19 wave were to emerge in the second part of 2020. The GDP would see a contraction of approximately 0.8% of GDP relative to 2019 in case this hypothetical wave would only occur outside Kenya, and a GDP contraction of 3.8% in case a new set of lockdown measures would need to be imposed in Kenya as well. Employment levels would see a significant reduction of 19.1% while the government deficit would further expand. Addressing the impacts of the April-June lockdown, the announced government spending measures and the reduction of rates for VAT, income, turnover and corporate taxes facilitated by an increase in foreign borrowing determine a short-term recovery at a macroeconomic level, with negative GDP impacts reduced from 5.6% to 4.8% of GDP, implying an approximately 0.9% growth rate for 2020. These measures have an even more pronounced effect for the recovery of household income and the food sectors. Government revenues nevertheless see a decline and, with an increase in public spending, the government deficit expands by a further 25.1 billion KSh. The extent to which this deficit will need to be covered through internal borrowing will influence private investment through crowding-out effects and will constrain medium-term recovery. The main findings of the report show the negative macroeconomic effects of the pandemic on the Kenyan economy and how the government short-term recovery package can support households in reducing these negative impacts. The report also shows that these measures will put under severe stress the government resources, in particular in case of double waves. This calls for a global reaction in front of the negative impacts of the pandemic to support more fragile countries. Future research on this topic will focus on medium-term impacts of economic measures to fight the spread of the pandemic and on distributional impacts of these measures.