AEPP SPECIAL ISSUE
American policy journal authors meet to present analyses and formulate policy suggestions on COVID-19 impact and future shocks
October 22, 2022, Kathmandu: The COVID-19 pandemic dominated policy discourse for more than two years from early 2020, when the health and economic impacts of the virus first began to affect countries across the globe. Concerns around viral transmission and overburdened health systems caused many governments to adopt strict containment strategies to slow down the spread of the virus, including restrictions on the movement of people and goods that led to massive supply chain disruptions and slowdowns in several economic sectors. Unsurprisingly, the poorest and most marginalized were worse hit by the economic consequences of the pandemic.
The editors and authors of a special issue of the Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy (AEPP), the policy journal of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, titled – “COVID-19 in South Asia: Lessons from a time of upheaval” gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal for a workshop from October 17 and 18, 2022, to present and discuss the micro- and macro-economic analyses of the impacts of COVID-19 and associated shocks in countries across the region. The main motivation for bringing out this special issue is to publish a set of forward-looking, applied policy analyses with the aim of informing future policies. The authors’ retreat is being organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in partnership with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for Asia (ReSAKSS-Asia) supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Remarking on the journal’s special issue, Dr. Shahidur Rashid, Director, IFPRI-South Asia Regional Office said, “In bringing together this issue, the editors hope to anchor the large body of scholarship and the lessons learned from this crisis to offer concrete recommendations to mitigate the pandemic’s impact in the region and for similar shocks going forward.”
In several developing countries, COVID-19 and associated public policies wiped out hard-earned economic, social, and health and nutrition-related gains achieved over the past decade. Through these successive waves, the pandemic also exposed vulnerabilities in several South Asian economies that make them particularly susceptible to shocks of this kind: low levels of urbanization and development, high rates of internal and external migration and subsequent dependence on remittance incomes, labor-intensive industries, precarious, underfunded health systems, high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition, severe gender disparities, uncoordinated agricultural markets, and income and wealth inequalities. The situation has since been further exacerbated by other unrelated events: a military coup in Myanmar, political instability in Pakistan, the collapse of the government in Sri Lanka, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, among others.
Developing resilience against future shocks of this kind will require deeper structural changes. The last two and a half years have indisputably stalled both national and global development agendas. Economically, South Asia was the fastest-growing region in the world from 2014 until the onset of COVID-19, with clear signs of structural transformation— rising real wages, a declining share of agriculture in GDP, and a sizeable non-farm sector that was steadily growing in prominence. Examples of transforming economies facing shocks of the magnitude of COVID-19 are rare in history, those of economies suffering multiple such shocks even rarer, and very little is known about what it will take for countries in the region to return to their pre-pandemic trajectories. Dr. Alex Winter-Nelson, Professor & Acting Associate Dean of the Office of Research, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Univ of Illinois Urbana Champaign, who helped to review the papers said that the issue evolved out of “a need to share, learn, and synthesize some of the forward-looking ideas that emerged out of the various innovative COVID-19 related studies that were undertaken in South Asia. The idea was to bring together the various studies and present them in a consistent way that could help suggest and frame policy recommendations to deal with similar future shocks of previously unprecedented magnitude, especially considering the increasingly apparent climate change impacts and the unpredictability of the global scene.”
This Special Issue brings together papers on five critical topics. First, agriculture and agricultural value chains, with papers examining the interaction between COVID-19, agricultural trade and food price inflation in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the impact of the pandemic on specific value chains in Bangladesh and India, and detailed investigations into the rise in food insecurity and seasonal poverty. Second, labor market policies, including the role of a specific safety net targeted to displaced migrants and the critical role of social identity in determining job losses in India. Third, several papers addressing resilience, or the ability of affected individuals and households to recover after being affected by a shock of this kind, including analyses in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Fourth, the compounded impact of multiple crises, with Sri Lanka and Myanmar as case studies. Fifth and finally, a set of papers that ‘zoom out’ to look at economy-wide macroeconomic implications of COVID-19, in Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan. “At the peak of the pandemic, the situation was gloomy for Nepal since the country is overwhelmingly dependent on remittances; the country is also heavily reliant on agricultural imports and has issues with supply chain – all these are some of the issues that can be taken up at a policy level. By 2030, we need to try to resolve them and achieve self-sufficiency in major agricultural produce. I look forward to the analyses and possible recommendations that could evolve out of this process”, said Dr. Biswash Gauchan, Executive Director, Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), Nepal.
All papers included in this Special Issue have clear articulations of the issues and provide focused policy recommendations. Remarking on the discussion, Ms. Lynn Schneider, Deputy Director, Economic Growth Office at USAID-Nepal said, “I appreciate how many of the papers look at how these shocks affect the vulnerable and marginalized during and even after the shocks. It would be great if this would eventually evolve into a set of policy recommendations for policy-makers, stakeholders, donors etc. that can help us be cognizant of the possibility of more such future shocks and what plans, and actions could be set in place when we would have to face these stresses.” It is undeniably important that these economies recover as fast as possible. Given the size of South Asia’s population, the proportion of this population that is undernourished, its climate vulnerability and the limiting structural factors outlined above, the way the region responds to this pandemic and possible future shocks will have broad and enduring consequences on global development targets, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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For more information, please contact: Ms. Anisha Mohan, Communications Associate, IFPRI South Asia at a.mohan@cgiar.org
