Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe study assesses the implications of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the government responses for the economic performance and poverty incidence in Ethiopia for the fiscal years of 2019/20 and 2020/21. It accounts for the impacts of the pandemic on factor productivity, trade costs, export demand, tourism, remittances and foreign direct investment (FDI). An economy‐wide multi‐sectoral model determines impacts at macroeconomic, sectoral, and household levels. A poverty analysis module characterises the effects of the pandemic on food poverty headcount, gap, and severity. Results show that the COVID‐19 impacts could have been significant across all macroeconomic metrics had the government not intervened through fiscal and spending measures. However, much of the recovery through government intervention was driven by agricultural and food processing sectors while output in manufacturing, construction and services sectors continued to be negatively affected. Without government intervention, the food poverty headcount would have increased by about five percentage points. The government measures have mitigated that effect allowing food poverty to reach pre‐COVID‐19 values in 2020/21. Nevertheless, with all measures combined, poor urban households may have been left behind and would require more targeted support to compensate for a significant loss of income.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all Sub-Saharan economies through a multitude of impact channels. The study determines the medium-term macroeconomic outcomes of the pandemic on the Kenyan economy and links the results with a detailed food security and nutrition microsimulation module. It thus evaluates the effectiveness of the adopted government measures to reduce the negative outcomes on food security and to enable economic recovery at aggregate, sectoral and household levels. Through income support measures, the food sector and food demand partially recover. However, 1.3% of households still fall below calorie intake thresholds, many of which are in rural areas. Results also indicate that the state of food security in Kenya remains vulnerable to the evolution of the pandemic abroad.