Written submission from the United Nations World Food Programme UK Office, April 2020

International Development Committee Inquiry - Humanitarian Crises Monitoring: Impact of Coronavirus

Direct impact of COVID-19 on developing countries

• More food insecure and malnourished people: The health crisis threatens to become a global humanitarian catastrophe with the economic fallout forcing 265 million into acute hunger in 2020, double the 2019 figure of 135 million. There are currently 30 million people at severe risk, and it is quite possible that 300,000 people a day will die of causes related to hunger if we cannot reach them. Under normal circumstances, a severely malnourished child is nine times more likely to die – a tragic statistic that is only set to worsen as COVID-19 spreads. During a pandemic, malnutrition rates can increase sharply, leading to even higher mortality rates, as malnourished people often have compromised immune systems.

WFP plans to assists 100 million people in 2020 and the number is expected to rise further as the crisis unfolds. For many poor countries, the economic consequences will be more devastating than the disease itself. The pandemic is impacting all countries – and the most vulnerable will be those with fragile economies, services, and health systems. In Africa, think landlocked, import-dependent countries like Malawi or Zimbabwe, or countries with pre-existing conflict and climate change strains on food security like Burkina Faso or South Sudan.

WFP has developed tools such as Hunger Map LIVE that monitors and captures the evolution of COVID-19 outbreaks according to the level of income of countries, and our Hunger Analytics Hub to track global COVID-19 data. These tracking tools are made available to the entire humanitarian and health community.

• School children not attending school/not receiving school meals: almost 1.6 billion children and youth – or 91 percent of enrolled learners around the world – are having to stay away from schools and universities due to the pandemic (UNESCO). Nationwide closures are in force in some 192 countries, with huge implications for students’ learning and for school meals. More than 12 million children are no longer receiving WFP school meals. An interactive WFP map, showing how COVID-19 is disrupting children’s school meals, provides daily on-screen updates on school closures and the number of children no longer receiving school meals globally as a result.

• Humanitarian response hampered by restrictions on global movements: tighter border controls and commercial transport closures mean that the usual routes for humanitarian and health organizations are being disrupted. WFP needs to ensure its equipment and staff can rapidly reach the areas where they are most needed. Using its proven expertise in this field, WFP is expanding its common logistics services to support the global humanitarian response. 

• We may soon see disruptions in the food supply chains. Blockages to transport routes are particularly obstructive for fresh food supply chains and may result in increased food loss and waste. Transport restrictions and quarantine measures are likely to impede farmers’ access to markets. Shortages of labour could disrupt production and processing of food, notably for labour-intensive crops, particularly in vulnerable countries in sub-Saharan Africa. For more on this, see the recent WFP analysis of the economic and food security implications of the pandemic.

Impact on funding

• WFP’s priority is to ensure it has the resources in place to address the food and nutrition needs of the almost 100 million people it plans to assist in 2020 and support the global health response with vital logistics common services. At the start of the year, WFP estimated that it would need US$12 billion for its work for 2020. That number could easily rise depending on the impact the pandemic on the most vulnerable people. As the impact of COVID-19 on economies becomes clearer, we are increasingly concerned that we could fall US$5 billion short.

• WFP is appealing for funding and to accelerate already pledged but not yet received contributions to enable the forward procurement and pre-positioning of buffer stocks of food and cash so that at least 3 months of assistance can be provided in fragile places. WFP is also asking for maximum flexibility in the way that resources are used so that food assistance can respond dynamically to the rapidly changing situation. See numbers below.

• WFP is urgently appealing to all Governments for an additional $965 million for the next 8 months to fund common humanitarian services including vital aviation, shipping, storage and transport, as well as engineering services in areas affected by the pandemic. This is an initial investment and will rapidly increase as requirements grow. The aim is to provide a comprehensive system that enables the entire humanitarian community to respond globally to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing passenger and cargo airlift capacity, and badly needed infrastructure. A humanitarian response cannot function without support for staff in terms of transport, medical evacuation systems and health centres to treat sick humanitarian workers, especially in areas where commercial aircraft are not flying, and health systems are collapsing due to the impact of the pandemic. DFID has made an initial contribution to WFP of 15 million pounds for logistics services.

In numbers as of 19th April 2020:

WFP total funding requirements for logistics services                                               965 million USD

WFP total funding required to assist 135 million people in 2020                                        12 billion USD

People projected to suffer from acute hunger by end of 2020 (WFP)                  265 million 

% international trade flows expected to fall in 2020 due to COVID-19 (WTO)  32 percent 

                     % global GDP expected to shrink by as much as (WTO)                                                                                               8.8 percent 

2