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OCHA Policy Brief on Gendered Drivers, Risks and Impacts of Food Insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2023) CC

It is widely understood that the food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing and most neglected crises. It lacks sufficient global focus, resources and urgency. As in so many crises, women and girls are disproportionately affected and shoulder t...he consequences of protracted neglect, with unconscionable impacts on their safety, life chances and agency. Gaining a holistic view of the gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is difficult. This is due to a lack of data and prioritization, and the large geographical and socioeconomic terrain covered by both regions. However, what we do know about this crisis is more than enough to urgently address the needs of women and girls. An OCHA discussion paper on this topic (which will be published imminently, and from which this policy brief is drawn) found that there is: A strong risk of profound regression in gender equality gains made to date in the countries of concern, including on education, sexual and reproductive health, and the economic independence of women and girls (with knock-on effects on broader humanitarian and development outcomes). An increasing challenge to reverse what must be recognized as a protracted and growing gender-based violence (GBV) emergency in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. The food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is protracted, multidimensional and highly gendered, with spiralling impacts on gender equality and food security outcomes. It is driven by interwoven and overlapping factors, including climate change, political instability, conflict, socioeconomic conditions, migration and displacement and, more recently, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Interlinked with these factors are gendered structural drivers of food insecurity, including deeply entrenched gender inequalities and harmful social norms. Gendered risks and impacts of food insecurity include alarming limitations on access to education, sexual and reproductive health rights, women’s agency and participation, and dramatic increases in different existing forms of GBV and the emergence of new ones. Recognition of such gendered dimensions of food insecurity and of the need for a multisectoral approach in the response is key to addressing the crisis, along-side sustained commitment and adequate allocation of resources. This policy brief draws out key findings from the OCHA discussion paper on this topic, which includes a desk review of studies, assessments and reports, and interviews with local women’s organizations on the front lines of the food insecurity crisis in communities across both regions. Below are the most pressing gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity (not in order of priority), as well as key gaps in the current humanitarian response to food insecurity, and recommendations to take forward. more

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Promoting Cardiovascular Health in the Developing World

Institute of Medicine (2010) CC

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is often thought to be a problem of wealthy, industrialized nations. The term “cardiovascular disease” is used throughout the report to refer to cardiac disease, vascular diseases of the brain and kidney, and peripheral vascular disease. The report’s main focus is ... more

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Influencing food environments for healthy diets

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO (2016) C2

Food environments are usually defined as the settings with all the different types of food made available and accessible to people as they go about their daily lives. That is, the range of food in supermarkets, small retail outlets, wet markets, street food stalls, coffee shops, tea houses, s...chool canteens, restaurants, and all the other venues where people buy and eat food. These environments differ enormously depending on the context. They can be extensive and diverse, with a seemingly endless array of options and price ranges, or they can be sparse, with very few options on offer. Because they determine what food consumers can access at a given moment in time, at what price, and with what degree of convenience, food environments both constrain and prompt the consumer’s choice.Food environments are influenced by the food systems which supply them, and vice versa. Food systems encompass the entire range of activities, people and institutions involved in the production, processing, marketing, consumption and disposal of food (FAO, 2013). They include but are not limited to food supply chains. Making food systems nutrition-sensitive can contribute to addressing all forms of malnutrition, as food systems determine whether the food needed for good nutrition are available, affordable, acceptable and of adequate quantity and quality. How closely food systems and food environments are interrelated and interdependent, and the degree to which external factors affect nutrition outcomes, varies from setting to setting.Many of today’s food systems and food environments are challenged in supporting consumer choices that are consistent with healthy diets and good nutrition. Consumers are not making choices based on nutrition and health, and poor diet is now the number one risk factor for death and disability worldwide (GBD, 2015). Food systems that do not enable healthy diets are increasingly recognized as an underlying cause of malnutrition (GLOPAN, 2016), and malnutrition, irrespective of form, has a huge cost. Economic costs associated with undernutrition are estimated at $1-2 trillion per year, about 2-3% of global GDP (FAO, 2013); the global economic cost of obesity and associated diet-related non-communicable diseases is estimated at $2 trillion per year, about 2.8% of global GDP (McKinsey, 2014). Influencing food environments for promoting healthy diets is an emerging strategy to address today’s nutrition challenges. more

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Financing transformative health systems towards achievement of the health Sustainable Development Goals: a model for projected resource needs in 67 low-income and middle-income countries

Stenberg, K.; O. Hanssen; T. Tan-Torres Edejer et al. Lancet Glob Health (2017) C1

Background The ambitious development agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires substantial investments across several sectors, including for SDG 3 (healthy lives and wellbeing). No estimates of the additional resources needed to strengthen comprehensive health service delivery to... more

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Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: Guidelines for assessment and management of cardiovascular risk

World Health Organization WHO (2007) C_WHO

Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of disability and premature death throughout the world, and contributes substantially to the escalating costs of health care. The underlying pathology is atherosclerosis, which develops over many years and is usually advanced by the time symptoms occur, genera... more

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Financing Health for All in the context of scarcity

Corinne Grainger Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) (2023) CC

CATALYST DIALOGUE ON HEALTH FINANCING Insights from a debate on how to increase funding for health and spend existing funds more effectively. Catalyst Dialogue participants: Christoph Benn, Director for Global Health Diplomacy, Joep Lange Institute • Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Univer... more

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Recovering from the Ebola Crisis: A summary report

UN Development Programme (2015)

In response to a call by the United Nations Secretary-General and the Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, an international team conducted an Ebola Recovery Assessment.The aim was to contribute towards laying the foundation for short-, medium- and long-term recovery while the medical eme... more

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Humanitarian crises monitoring: Coronavirus in developing countries: Secondary impacts

International Development Committee, Government of the United Kingdom (2021) CC

Developing countries face disastrous healthcare setbacks, hunger and huge international debt as covid-19’s ‘final wave’

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How to finance sustainable development: Recovery from the effects of COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean

UN United Nations (2022) C1

Global asymmetries influence policies for recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean. Nearly 30 years after the Earth Summit and the global adoption of an international development agenda, in practical terms the environmental pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has not been taken ... more

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Plan des Nations Unies pour l’appui a la reponse socio economique immediate au Covid-19 en RDC

UN Sustainable Development Group UNSDG (2020) C1

Le présent Plan du SNU en RDC d’appui à la réponse socioéconomique au COVID-19 est adossé au Programme Multisectoriel d’Urgence d’Atténuation des effets de la COVID-19 en RDC, formulé par le Gouvernement, avec le soutien des partenaires au développement. Il est également aligné au Pl... more

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Programme d'appui a la resilience des menags pur faire face aux conséquences socio-économiques du COVID-19

Ministère de la Developpement Communitaires Senegal (2020) CC

PROGRAMME D’APPUI A LA RESILIENCE DES MENAGES POUR FAIRE FACE AUX CONSEQUENCESSOCIO-ECONOMIQUES DU COVID 19

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Analysis of the Situation of Children and Women in Bangladesh 2015

UNICEF (2015)

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Covid-19 Pandemic: Impact of restriction measures in West Africa

World Food Program WFP (2020) CC

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The sociodemographic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean

United Nations ECLAC (2022) C1

Latin America and the Caribbean is characterized by a matrix of social inequality whose axes —such as socioeconomic stratum, gender, stage in the life cycle, ethnicity and race, territory, disability, and immigration status— create multiple, often concurrent, situations of exclusion and discri... more

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Afrique de l'Ouest - Pendemie de la COVID-19: Impact des mesures de restriction, December 2020

World Food Program WFP (2020) CC

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Un rayo de luz en la ensombrecida Venezuela - Informe sobre América Latina N°75 | 15 de julio de 2019

International Crisis Group (2019) C1

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HIV Country Profile: 2017 - India

World Health Organization (WHO) (2017) C_WHO

HIV Country Intelligence - HIV Country Profiles

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The Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) III (2017-2022)

Government of Malawi (2017) CC

The third Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS III) has been formulated following the expiry of its predecessor strategy, MGDS II, in June 2016. The strategy has been prepared at a time when Malawi has been experiencing multiple shocks including floods, drought and financial crises. While fo... more

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LESOTHO Vulnerability Assessment Committee Results 2017

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (2017) C2

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Dietary and other lifestyle factors and their influence on non-communicable diseases in the Western Pacific region

Sun, X.; Yon, D.K.; Nguyen, T.T. et al. The Lancet Regional Health (2024) CC

The document systematically examines dietary and lifestyle factors influencing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Western Pacific region. It highlights regional nutrition transitions, including dietary improvements like increased fruit and vegetable consumption and reduced salt intake, alongsid... more