Contextualizing the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on food security in two small cities in Bangladesh.

Sumaiya Sudha,Louise J Bracken,M Feisal Rahman,Hanna A Ruszczyk

doi:10.1177/0956247820965156

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is an evolving urban crisis. This research paper assesses impacts of the lockdown on food security and associated coping mechanisms in two small cities in Bangladesh (Mongla and Noapara) during March to May 2020. Due to restrictions during the prolonged lockdown, residents (in particular low-income groups) had limited access to livelihood opportunities and experienced significant or complete loss of income. This affected both the quantity and quality of food consumed. Coping strategies reported include curtailing consumption, relying on inexpensive starchy staples, increasing the share of total expenditure allocated to food, taking out loans and accessing relief. The pandemic has exacerbated the precariousness of existing food and nutrition security in these cities, although residents with guaranteed incomes and adequate savings did not suffer significantly during lockdown. While coping strategies and the importance of social capital are similar in small and large cities, food procurement and relationships with local governments show differences.

Highlights

The United Nations declared on 20 May 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic was more than a health emergency
Bangladesh had 282,344 cases of COVID-19 and 3,740 people had died from the virus.(3) The Asian Development Bank, in a hypothetical worstcase scenario, predicted that Bangladesh could lose 1.1 per cent of GDP growth and 894,930 formal jobs due to the pandemic.(4)
While there are timely online academic repositories of policy advice and stock-taking assessments of local communities and their networks that are self-organizing to cope with the evolving crisis,(5) these are largely focused on major cities and little is known about the lived experiences of residents in smaller, less prominent cities

Summary

Introduction

The United Nations declared on 20 May 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic was more than a health emergency. Rapid response research conducted in April 2020 by the Power and Participation Research Centre and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development of Bangladesh(6) observed a steep drop in income, extreme uncertainty of livelihoods and a contraction in consumption. The paper further reported that the income shock across all income groups led to a contraction in food consumption, as evidenced by a reduction in food expenditure of 28 per cent for urban informal settlement respondents and 22 per cent for rural respondents. It remains unclear how residents in smaller cities are coping with the food, social and economic disruptions associated with COVID-19

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