In The Caribbean, Severe Food Insecurity Has Increased By 72% In The Past Two Years

In The Caribbean, Severe Food Insecurity Has Increased By 72% In The Past Two Years

Share to Linkedin A series of surveys administered by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) have revealed that, in the English-speaking Caribbean, the estimated prevalence of severe food insecurity has increased by 72% since the onset of the pandemic and by 44% as compared to one year ago. In April 2020, CARICOM in a partnership with WFP began tracking the impact of COVID-19 on food security and livelihoods across 22 countries and territories in the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean through the CARICOM Caribbean COVID-19 Food Security and Livelihoods Impact Survey. The surveys were administered in April 2020, June 2020 and February 2021, with the fourth and most recent round taking place in February 2022. Experiences with food insecurity are due to the unique interplay of a multitude of factors associated with food availability, food access, food utilization and economic vulnerability. Using WFP's Consolidated Approach for Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI), survey respondents were placed into categories on a food insecurity scale, based on a combination of variables, with the most extreme being labeled "severe." "Severely food insecure households struggle to put food on the table every day or have to employ