Pandemic threatens millions of households in developing countries with falling into poverty | Explica
Explica.co highlights the results of a recent study by CEGA Faculty Director and co-authors, which demonstrated the staggering effects COVID-19 has had on food security and income accross the developing world:
“The work, which has the participation of world Bank and from universities on several continents, offers an in-depth view of the socioeconomic effects that the pandemic has caused in low-income countries during the first months, between March and July 2020.
To achieve this, the team carried out more than 30,000 telephone surveys in cities containing more than 100,000 inhabitants from nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Specifically, the chosen sample gathered households from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines and Colombia. It should be noted that many of the respondents were obtained at random, so the sample includes individuals and families with different income levels.
“Looking at the data we have collected in so many different countries, it has become clear that most have had to really struggle or suffer from the pandemic. They have lost jobs, struggled to feed their families, and often had difficulty accessing markets and healthcare. It is terrible to see how this happens in so many different societies ”, he tells SINC Edward Miguel, co-author of the study, professor of environmental economics and resources at the University of Berkeley, in California (USA) and director of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) also in Berkeley.”
