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COVID-19 risks rolling back many of the efforts and global successes recorded in reducing poverty and food insecurity. We undertake a systematic review of the growing microeconomic literature on the association between COVID-19 and food (in)security in Africa, discussing its implications for food policy and research. In doing so, we highlight some of the methodological weaknesses in answering policy-relevant questions on the causal link between COVID-19 and food insecurity. We also review the various coping strategies households are using to build resilience to COVID-19 and explore the role of social protection and other tools in mitigating some of the negative effects of COVID-19. This review provides evidence that COVID-19 is associated with food insecurity both ex-ante and ex-durante. There are many attempts to suggest this relationship may be causal with some robust methods in some contexts, but data limitations prevail which constrains causal learning. We also find evidence that income losses, loss of employment, and heightened food prices may be mediating the relationship between COVID-19 and food insecurity. Going further, we additionally review the mitigating role of social protection and remittances in reducing the negative effects of COVID-19 on food insecurity. Relatedly, we also show evidence that households are using various coping strategies such as food rationing and dietary change to cushion themselves against the COVID-19 shock but most of these measures remain adversely correlated with food insecurity. We end with a discussion on some potential interesting areas where future efforts can be geared to improve learning on the relationship between COVID-19, food insecurity, and building resilience to shocks.

This policy note synthesizes the key messages and lessons from existing evidence and trends in the development, deployment and scale up of ICT-enabled marketing tools. It is based on the recently published discussion paper titled “Digital tools and agricultural market transformation in Africa: Why are they not at scale yet, and what will it take to get there”. Key messages • Many digital innovations have been developed and deployed in recent years in Africa, many of which have only been implemented at pilot stages, with limited evidence of successful scaling. • There remains significant marketing and institutional constraints hindering the development of some of these digital innovations, which may further explain disparate progress in countries. • Differential access to digital innovations across genders and different typologies of households may trigger alternative variants of digital divide. • Although the landscape of digital innovations in Africa offers several reasons to remain optimistic, the prevailing disconnect between pilots and scale-ups merits further evaluation.

The Forsa program, launched in 2021 by the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity has been designed as a graduation program targeted to current beneficiaries of the Takaful cash transfer program. To understand how well Forsa supports household income generation and to better understand the beneficiary household characteristics which may relate to program success, the International Food Policy Research Institute in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Solidarity is running a randomized control trial of the pilot Forsa program (see IFPRI MENA Regional Program Policy Note 21 for more details on the program and evaluation design). A baseline household survey collected in January-February 2022 provides a detailed picture of the eligible households in the targeted communities, including the employment situation and work-related skills of the household members intending to participate in Forsa. The household survey data was collected in the eight governorates of the pilot: Beni-Suef, Sharqia, Qalyoubia, Luxor, Fayoum, Menia, Souhag, and Assuit. 24 households Forsa-eligible households were surveyed in each of 323 communities: 16 households from the pool of current Takaful beneficiaries and 8 from the pool of Takaful rejected applicants. The final sample size was 7,752 households. Each household was asked whether they were willing to enroll in Forsa and, if so, which household member would participate in the trainings. 83% of sampled eligible households indicated willingness to enroll in Forsa. The large majority of these (77%) indicated a preference for the self-employment track.

Africa has the youngest population in the world, but African economies are not creating enough high-productivity jobs, and rates of youth unemployment thus remain a major challenge in the region. Several supply- and demand-side factors may explain these trends, including skill gaps. While traditional technical and vocational education and training (TVET) centers address important gaps in hard (technical) skills, soft-skills trainings have not yet received sufficient attention in the African context. We evaluate the overall and heterogenous impact of a gender-sensitive soft-skills training that aimed to address youths’ unique interests, preferences, and labor market constraints in Kenya. We also examine whether the presence (or absence) of complementary noncognitive skills, such as locus-of-control skills, moderates the impact of the soft-skills training. We use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a soft-skills training to support young men and women in making the transition from school to work in Kenya. Our evaluation combines baseline, midline, and endline data to understand the dynamics of labor market transitions for youth. We find that although the soft-skills training prepared youth for the labor market by improving their willingness, expectations, and preparedness for jobs, the impact of the soft-skills training on ultimate labor market outcomes varies across individuals with varying psychological traits. The training improved labor market outcomes for those with internal locus of control but not for individuals who lack these attributes. One standard deviation increase in (internal) locus of control is associated with a 5 percentage-point increase in the impact of the soft-skills training on probability of participation in income-earning activities. We also find that returns to locus of control and the soft-skills training are higher for females than males.

Forsa, which means “Opportunity” in Arabic, is a new economic inclusion program of the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, the program aims to graduate beneficiaries of the national cash transfer program, the Takaful & Karama Program (TKP), to economic self-reliance by enabling them to engage in wage employment or sustainable economic enterprises. The 2021 World Bank Economic Inclusion report (Andrews et al. 2021) highlights a recent increase globally in such graduation or economic inclusion programs, which now reaches around 92 million beneficiaries from 20 million households across more than 75 countries. This rapid growth has necessitated an increasing demand for evidence on best practices in graduation program implementation. The newly designed Forsa program is based on the graduation approach, but with innovations drawing from theories of behavioral economics as well as creating a network of active youth volunteers for economic empowerment to reduce costs compared to the standard BRAC-inspired model. Forsa also expands the graduation model to include the option of wage-employment, rather than only focusing on self-employment. Evidence on the impact of job training programs linked to wage employment on both job retention and future earnings is mixed (McKenzie 2017), although most such programs do not include cash assistance. This impact evaluation of the Forsa program in Egypt is intended to contribute to the global evidence on effective graduation program design as well as provide immediate policy-relevant guidance for the Ministry of Social Solidarity. The impact evaluation will measure the degree to which Forsa is successful at increasing household consumption and will investigate which participant groups and program features demonstrate the greatest improvements in household welfare and economic activity.