A crisis within a crisis

The Food and Agriculture Office of the United Nations raised the alert that “our hungriest, most vulnerable communities (now face) a crisis within a crisis.”

Long before the present pandemic, the FAO stressed that “135 million people on the planet were already struggling with acute food insecurity due to pre-existing shocks or crises. This means they were already on the extreme end of the hunger spectrum-weak, and less well-equipped to fend off the virus.”

All of us are witnessing in our country, Cebu included, that more and more people are hungry. And poorer.

FAO echoes what we have been pounding on repeatedly – that “while health needs are an urgent and primary concern, we cannot neglect livelihoods or food security aspects.”

FAO also warns that when people are hungry, “when people's livelihoods are disrupted, that can spark tensions and social unrest.” How? “Vulnerable populations may be more likely to leave behind their livelihoods and move in search of assistance - as would any of us - with the unintended consequence of potentially further spreading the virus and possibly encountering heightened social tensions.”

As the people of vulnerable countries are exposed to rising infections, especially those who are already “malnourished, weak and vulnerable to disease -- a ‘crisis within a crisis’ could emerge, in which the health crisis will be compounded by a hunger crisis. And that, in a vicious feedback loop, will leave more people weaker and vulnerable to the virus.”

Aside from the health crisis, the hunger crisis, there is also the livelihood crisis that needs to be addressed simultaneously and urgently.

It is wise and timely to heed FAO’s alert that “if we let people's livelihoods be lost as a result of this pandemic, once the human health crisis has eased, we will have major problems to deal with, afterwards. It is both more humane and strategically smarter to protect and sustain livelihoods now, rather than rebuild them after.”

Gratefully, here in Cebu City, Councilor Alvin Dizon quickly recognized that “the current COVID 19 pandemic crisis left majority of our population jobless and laid bare “the most essential needs of our people – food, water and medicine.”

Dizon called “on governments at all levels to anticipate and respond to these severe difficulties especially during a community quarantine, with the marginalized and disadvantaged communities and most vulnerable groups such as the informal settlers, children, elderly, Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), among others, as priority and their needs urgently provided for, not as a gesture of charity, but as matter of right.”

Yesterday, July 8, Councilor Alvin Dizon promptly submitted for public hearing an ordinance establishing a Food Bank in Cebu City, (to be managed by the Department of Social Welfare and Services –DSWS) where food will be directly given to the poor and hungry (the “front line” model) and where food will be supplied through intermediaries like community kitchens and other frontline organizations doing hunger-relief assistance (the “warehouse” model).

Dizon’s ordinance proposed that “dynamic and multisectoral food distribution plans must include adaptable and science-driven strategies such as (a) food supply-chain analysis, (b) developing a food distribution network (supply points, processing and packaging facilities, and points of delivery) based on census tract and socio-geographical studies on the city’s vulnerable communities, (c) using the power of algorithms to create an emergency supply chain network that is dynamic, efficient, and responsive to the actual and/or anticipated needs of the population; and (d) self-sufficiency programs like growing food in home and community gardens.”

Hopefully, Councilor Dizon’s ordinance will see a more systematic, coordinated, monitored food and assistance network of multisectoral partners ensuring that during and outside of crisis and pandemic, no one goes hungry ever.