State of food security in Sierra Leone 2020: comprehensive food security and vulnerability analysis
This is the third Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis in Sierra Leone evidencing trend analysis that spans over ten years. The 2020 food security and vulnerability analysis was conducted eight months after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Sierra Leone. The pandemic has had a devastating impact on the global economy, put enormous pressure on national health systems and paralyzed the world population in strict lockdowns. Sierra Leone has not been spared and the Government, in its efforts to contain the pandemic, imposed a partial inter-district lockdown in March 2020 and later a national lockdown was announced, which set measures that included border closure, school closures and restrictions on movements. These lockdown measures stifled economic growth, increased prices of basic commodities, including staple food prices and led to loss of income for majority of Sierra Leoneans. While this food security analysis is not a COVID-19 impact study, it does provide insights into the fragility of livelihoods and trend analysis in comparison with previous food security analyses of 2015 and 2010 that were also implemented in challenging contexts: the deadly outbreak of Ebola in 2014/15 and the first analysis was conducted against the backdrop of the global economic crisis in 2008/09.
