The year 2020, due to the arrival of the pandemic, has radically transformed the life of people all over the world, with the worst consequences for the most vulnerable region in the world: Africa. The increase in the percentage of malnourished people, the lack of water availability, the reduced hygiene and the rising unemployment are just some of the challenges the African continent faced, more severely than other countries, in recent months. The focus of my work will be on the major challenge for Africa: food insecurity. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the link between food insecurity and Covid-19 pandemic, and then go into more detail by examining the situation of two selected countries, located in Sub-Saharan Africa: Malawi and South Africa. Both will be analyzed from different points of view: number of cases of virus positivity, vaccines made, food and hygiene situation and economic change. The research is based on the analysis of few indices such as the global hunger index and the human development index. The main finding of this research is that countries with pre-existing malnutrition problems, combined with other issues such as economic weakness and political instability, had greater difficulty in coping with the pandemic and consequently increased food insecurity. At this stage it is not possible to make definite forecasts, although we can assume that sub-Saharan Africa countries will also be the ones who will find it most challenging to recover from the damage caused by Covid-19 pandemic in the medium-long term. Key words: Africa; Food insecurity; Covid-19 pandemic; Health care
L'anno 2020, a causa dell'arrivo della pandemia, ha trasformato radicalmente la vita delle persone in tutto il mondo, con le conseguenze peggiori per la regione più vulnerabile del mondo: L'Africa. L'aumento della percentuale di persone malnutrite, la mancanza di disponibilità d'acqua, l'igiene ridotta e l'aumento della disoccupazione sono solo alcune delle sfide che il continente africano ha affrontato, più gravemente di altri paesi, negli ultimi mesi. Il mio lavoro si concentrerà sulla sfida principale per l'Africa: l'insicurezza alimentare. Pertanto, lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di fornire una panoramica del legame tra insicurezza alimentare e pandemia di Covid-19, e poi entrare più in dettaglio esaminando la situazione di due paesi selezionati, situati nell'Africa sub-sahariana: Malawi e Sudafrica. Entrambi saranno analizzati da diversi punti di vista: numero di casi di positività al virus, vaccini fatti, situazione alimentare e igienica e cambiamenti economici. La ricerca si basa sull'analisi di alcuni indici come l'indice di fame globale e l'indice di sviluppo umano. Il risultato principale di questa ricerca è che i paesi con preesistenti problemi di malnutrizione, combinati con altre questioni come la debolezza economica e l'instabilità politica, hanno avuto maggiori difficoltà ad affrontare la pandemia e di conseguenza una maggiore insicurezza alimentare. In questa fase non è possibile fare previsioni definitive, anche se possiamo supporre che i paesi dell'Africa sub-sahariana saranno anche quelli che troveranno più difficile riprendersi dai danni causati dalla pandemia di Covid-19 nel medio-lungo termine. Parole chiave: Africa; Insicurezza alimentare; Pandemia di Covid-19; Assistenza sanitaria
Analysis of the impact of Covid-19 disease on food insecurity in Africa
SANSONETTI, ANNA
2020/2021
Abstract
The year 2020, due to the arrival of the pandemic, has radically transformed the life of people all over the world, with the worst consequences for the most vulnerable region in the world: Africa. The increase in the percentage of malnourished people, the lack of water availability, the reduced hygiene and the rising unemployment are just some of the challenges the African continent faced, more severely than other countries, in recent months. The focus of my work will be on the major challenge for Africa: food insecurity. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the link between food insecurity and Covid-19 pandemic, and then go into more detail by examining the situation of two selected countries, located in Sub-Saharan Africa: Malawi and South Africa. Both will be analyzed from different points of view: number of cases of virus positivity, vaccines made, food and hygiene situation and economic change. The research is based on the analysis of few indices such as the global hunger index and the human development index. The main finding of this research is that countries with pre-existing malnutrition problems, combined with other issues such as economic weakness and political instability, had greater difficulty in coping with the pandemic and consequently increased food insecurity. At this stage it is not possible to make definite forecasts, although we can assume that sub-Saharan Africa countries will also be the ones who will find it most challenging to recover from the damage caused by Covid-19 pandemic in the medium-long term. Key words: Africa; Food insecurity; Covid-19 pandemic; Health careÈ consentito all'utente scaricare e condividere i documenti disponibili a testo pieno in UNITESI UNIPV nel rispetto della licenza Creative Commons del tipo CC BY NC ND.
Per maggiori informazioni e per verifiche sull'eventuale disponibilità del file scrivere a: unitesi@unipv.it.
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14239/1463