FAO rolls out toolkit for smart policymaking during the COVID-19 crisis

The U.S. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has debuted a global library that provides detailed information on how different countries, with different social and fiscal landscapes and diverse agricultural endowments, are trying to keep their supply chains moving amid the disruptions caused by travel and other health restrictions.

While the FAO has outlined some broad principles, such as avoiding food export bans and bolstering social protection programs for the most vulnerable, every country is different, with particular social and fiscal landscapes as well as agricultural endowments. As a result, policies often need to be tailor-made to ensure food security for all.

India, for example, is rolling out software for warehouse-based trading of harvested foodstuffs that reduce the risks of congestion at wholesale markets where farmers sell their produce. Poland is offering subsidized loans to keep food processing facilities working. South Sudan is allowing restaurants to offer takeaway services. The Russian Federation, where lockdown measures began this month, is expediting benefit payments sent to low-income households with children.

To make it easier for all member states to consider their options, the FAO is relying on its recently revamped Food And Agriculture Policy Decision Analysis Tool (FAPDA) database. The tool is a platform for countries to share what they are doing and rapidly search for ideas from their peers.

Appropriate policies to bolster food systems during the COVID-19 pandemic naturally vary depending on circumstances. Some countries import most of their food, while others import some products while exporting others, meaning trade remains highly essential. State and fiscal capacities vary enormously, as do social patterns, such as population density, urbanization, and access to sanitation, education, and digital technologies.

Yet FAO’s accumulated expertise, which stems from engaging in agricultural, rural development, and humanitarian relief projects in many countries over many decades, allows for some evaluations to be made. So, to complement FAPDA, FAO has bolstered another policy platform to analyze past experiences in terms of their likely advantages and drawbacks in the effort to keep food and agricultural systems alive during this crisis.

This platform is continuously updated to offer a searchable compilation of policy practices in more than 130 countries that all member states can use to inform their decision making and response and is structured into six thematic areas: Emergencies, Nutrition, Trade, Social Protection, Development and Transformation, and Incentives and Disincentives. Navigation is available in multiple languages and aided by a map as well as a free text search function.