African market woman wearing face mask - Credit: Vic Josh
The impact of COVID-19 is growing and increasingly visible. As it affects food systems worldwide, public and private actors are identifying the short and long term consequences of this crisis for SDG2 to see what can be done to mitigate its impacts, and how food systems can be strengthened in their response.
The Food Security team at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands is following two lines in the strategy on how to respond to the COVID-19 crisis for Southern target groups and partners in developing countries. One is supportive of the global coordinated responses. The other one is supporting partners to reorient existing bilaterally-funded programmes to be meaningful at local scales with existing committed funds, capacities and networks. For example to facilitate input supply to farmers for the upcoming season, or to support the continued functioning of local food supply chains or nutrition programmes.
With support of Netherlands Food Partnership, several Communities of Practice have been formed focusing on: Markets & Supply Chains & Nutritious foods; Finance and Outreach; Digital Solutions; and Knowledge.
In this process Netherlands Food Partnership functions as a coordinating and supporting partner. NFP keeps an overview of the different processes and activities, organising and making accessible the information that is produced in the different workstreams, and supporting CoP work if needed.
In the process of identifying the short and long term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for SDG2, governments, research and aid organisations, as well as businesses are all creating and sharing a great variety of information. NFP provides an overview of shared resources and other information in relation to the work of the Communities of Practice.
