Recurrent floods since late 2019, an upsurge in locust invasion, and now the Covid-19 outbreak, all make for disaster for food security in East African countries, experts are warning.
Desert locust upsurge has remained alarming particularly in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, where a new generation of locusts is emerging, posing potentially adverse impacts on the agricultural seasonal yields and local economies affecting food security.
The indirect impacts of Covid-19 through government interventions to control its spread, including social distancing, movement restrictions, and border closures, have driven a slowdown in economic and trade activity that has led to a sharp decline in household income and, in some cases, contributed to spikes in food prices.
Reductions in household income to purchase food and essential non-food commodities, coupled with limited coping options, are driving an increase in the stressed, crisis and emergency food situations for populations across the region," said this month's Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net) report.
Already, in 2019, over 27 million people in six Intergovernmental Authority on Development members -- Uganda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia, were classified as being in acute food and livelihood crisis or worse -- a phase of acute dietary diversity deficit.
