Leveraging Policy Data and Harmonized Survey Data to Protect Health and Economic Security: Strengthening Frameworks to Leave No One Behind During COVID-19 and Beyond webinar takes place on Friday 9 October at 13:00 UK time, featuring PSE's Professor David Gordon on the speaking panel.
COVID-19 has eroded progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and governments around the world are passing policies to respond to the threat of the virus at a rapid rate. As policymakers, civil society, international government organizations, and others respond to the on-going crisis, evidence-based tools are needed to ensure that action at scale supports rather than erodes progress towards achieving the SDGs. Panelists include:
The numbers currently used by the UN to estimate malnutrition underplay the true extent of the problem. New analysis of data from 18 countries in the West and Central Africa shows that conventional estimates of malnutrition for the region effectively overlooked millions of malnourished children.
An overview of the various global and regional analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on poverty from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty finds that millions more will be pushed into extreme poverty worldwide.
A new United Nations food assessment of 17 West African countries - made before the potential impact of Covid-19 - finds more than 19 million people in the region will go hungry during the upcoming lean season.
The Food Foundation has just released the results of a YouGov survey on the impact of Covid-19 on food access. (See here ) They found that;
“More than 1.5 million adults in Britain say they cannot obtain enough food, 53% of NHS workers are worried about getting food, and half of parents with children eligible for Free School Meals have not received any substitute meals to keep their children fed, despite government assurances that they would provide food vouchers or parcels. This means that 830,000 children could be going without daily sustenance on which they usually rely.”
This year’s theme for the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty focussed on child and family poverty. A key theme was prioritising access to quality social services.
The UK Government recently agreed to measure food insecurity in the annual Family Resources Survey (FRS) – which is used to produce UK poverty statistics. Read more...
The Hard Times reports provide evidence gathered by communities themselves on the impact of austerity and cuts on families and young people across Northern Ireland. Watch the accompanying films on home repossession, struggles with debt and youth hopes and dreams on the community webpages.
I feel like I am walking on the edge of a cliff and at any moment I might fall off.
A coalition government minister has claimed it is ‘very hard to know' why people go to foodbanks.
The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Lord Freud, said in the House of Lords: 'On the issue of food banks... which we have discussed several times in this House, clearly nobody goes to a food bank willingly. However, it is very hard to know why people go to them'.
He added that a recent review commissioned by the coalition government had shown a 'lack of systematic peer-reviewed research' from the UK on the reasons or immediate circumstances that lead people to turn to food aid.