The COVID-19 pandemic is currently one of the world’s most pressing issues and one that is increasingly shaping government policies. To help provide policy support and information to member states, FAO offers several online policy tools.

FAO’s Food and Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis (FAPDA) database provides up-to-date information on national policy decisions and frameworks for over 100 countries. The database, which was developed some years back to provide decision makers with global policy trends on food security, now includes a brand-new section on current policy decisions that countries are implementing to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and agricultural systems. The COVID-19-related policy decisions are mapped through official and institutional sources and classified based on the areas of the food and agricultural systems they target.

Additionally, FAO has developed a policy platform that identifies and tracks useful policy responses that countries adopted during past crises. The platform offers a searchable compilation of policy practices that countries can use to inform their current decision making and response to the COVID-19 crisis. The list of practices, which is constantly updated and expanded, is structured into six thematic areas: Emergencies, Nutrition, Trade, Social Protection, Development and Transformation, and Incentives and Disincentives. 

Another important policy tool available is a collection of policy briefs that assess the pandemic’s impacts on a wide range of sectors across the food system, from trade and agri-food markets to food supply chains, from food loss and waste to nutrition, from smallholders’ livelihoods to labour migration and social protection.   

To access all of these tools, please visit FAO’s Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Portal.