Briefs
/ Policy brief
Impact of COVID-19 on agriculture, food systems and rural livelihoods in Eastern Africa
The FAO Subregional Office for Eastern Africa is a technical hub which supports nine countries in Eastern Africa: Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. It has a core team of professionals with multidisciplinary expertise. It is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies for addressing subregional food security, nutrition, agriculture and rural development priorities.
COVID-19 hit the Eastern Africa subregion at a particularly critical time when the economies of a number of countries in the subregion were recovering from the impacts of recent droughts and severe flooding and dealing with the worst desert locust invasion in 25 years. In addition, conflict- and climate-induced displacements are prominent in the subregion, with more than 7 million displaced people in camps or settlement situations in only four countries (1.78 million in Ethiopia, 1.67 million in South Sudan, 2.65 million in Somalia and 1.43 million in Uganda). The cumulative effect of these shocks has eroded the resilience of large segments of the population and strained governments and humanitarian agencies (UNHCR, 2020).