Attachments
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Between October and November 2022, the World Food Programme (WFP) carried out a nation-wide food security assessment for the Colombian population, covering a total of 118 municipalities across 29 of the country’s 32 departments. This report presents the full results of the assessment and an analysis of the national food security situation.
According to the assessment, 30% of the Colombian population is food insecure, which means that 15.5 million people do not have sufficient access to food and face difficulties covering their basic needs. This precarious situation forces many Colombians to rely on unsustainable coping strategies and leaves many households facing food shortages, hunger, and even malnutrition.
Of the 15.5 million food insecure Colombians, 2.1 million are severely food insecure and 13.4 million are moderately food insecure. Severely food insecure households have extreme gaps in food consumption and have exhausted their livelihood-based options. Moderately food insecure households have inadequate food consumption and must adopt survival strategies, such as selling household possessions, to be able to cover their basic needs.
The assessment also showed that half of the households are marginally food secure. This means that, despite acceptable levels of consumption, their situation may deteriorate if certain factors persist, such as high inflation, economic slowdown, climate-related disasters, and the continued effects of the Ukraine crisis.
In terms of geographic trends, the departments with the highest prevalence of food insecurity are located on the Atlantic coast, with the following being the most affected: Córdoba (70%), Sucre (63%), Cesar (55%), Bolívar (51%), and La Guajira (50%). Likewise, departments such as Arauca (62%), Putumayo (48%), Chocó (45%), and Norte de Santander (40%) also show high levels of food insecurity. The departments with the highest food insecure population, in absolute terms, are Antioquia (1.7 million), Bogotá Capital District (1.5 million), and Córdoba (1.3 million).
It is also noteworthy that food insecurity is not only a rural phenomenon. Although the prevalence of food insecurity (30%) is equal between urban and rural areas, urban areas hold greater numbers of food insecure households due to the high levels of urbanisation in Colombia.
The assessment found that food accounts for around half of household expenditure — a figure which is even higher among the poor — and that many households are adopting strategies to limit their food consumption.
In total, 36% of the population is unable to eat three meals a day (consuming twice a day or less), and around 17% of the population have significant gaps in their diet — i.e., poor or borderline food consumption, whereby households have a high dependency on grains and cereals and have limited consumption of other food groups, particularly animal-source proteins such as meat or dairy.
In the context of high food price inflation, many households reported that they had adopted consumption-based strategies due to lack of food.
During the week prior to the survey, more than half (51%) of households said they had to reduce portion sizes, and 42% said they had to reduce the number of meals. One in four households had to limit adult food consumption so that children were able to eat, a strategy that is adopted especially by women.
Food insecurity is highly correlated with economic vulnerability. According to this study, the expenditure of almost half of households (46%) is below the national poverty line, and the prevalence of food insecurity increases drastically for these households. Due to the internal and external shocks faced by the country in the last year, over a third of the households (35%) reported a reduction in their income in the last 12 months, a figure that increases among informal workers. While 42% of domestic workers and daily-wage labourer reported a reduction in their income in the last 12 months, only 31% of private sector employees and 23% of government employees reported a reduction in their salary.
Faced with a volatile labour market and high inflation, a high percentage of households have resorted to using debts to satisfy their basic needs (44%). Many of these households (43%) rely on informal lenders (“gota-a-gota”) who charge above-market interest rates. As food prices have continued to rise, some households face an accumulating debt burden, forcing them to reduce their expenses on other (often essential) needs in order to buy food.
The assessment found that more than two thirds of the Colombian population (69%) are adopting coping strategies because of a lack of food or money. Of these households, 18% are in such a critical situation that they are resorting to emergency strategies, which can have long term consequences.
The stress strategies used most by households include spending savings (53%) and buying food on credit (38%). The most common crisis strategy is to reduce spending on basic needs like healthcare and education (30%). And finally, the most frequently used emergency strategies include engaging in risky activities (12%) and begging on the street (8%).
Households in rural areas are more likely to use emergency (21%) and crisis (40%) strategies, in comparison with urban households (16% and 32%, respectively), who mainly adopt stress strategies, such a taking on debt and spending savings.
Certain groups are more vulnerable to food insecurity than others. One of the main results of this study is that almost half of the households that have been victims of armed conflict are food insecure, in comparison to households that have not been affected by conflict (29%).
Minority ethnic groups such as Afro-descendent or indigenous people experience higher levels of food insecurity — 42% and 40%, respectively — in comparison with households where the head of household does not belong to a minority ethnic group. This may be linked to the historical inequality and vulnerability experienced by these population groups.
Food security is strongly linked to education and employment. Households where the main provider works in the informal sector, such as a domestic worker or daily-wage labourer, show much higher levels of food insecurity (44% and 41%, accordingly) compared to households where the main provider is employed in the private (25%) or the public sector (nine percent). The percentage of food insecurity in households where the head of household has no education is 42%, compared to 10% for households where the head of household has a university degree.
Female-headed households experience greater food insecurity. According to this assessment, 36% of female-headed households are food insecure, compared to 27% for male-headed households, which may be due to the barriers that women face in the labour market.
The assessment concludes that food insecurity results from multiple factors, which include:
Structural factors such as poverty, unemployment, and exposure to violence.
Temporary factors related to extreme climate conditions (La Niña phenomenon), the impact of COVID-19, the effects of the Ukraine crisis, and inflation.
In this context, comprehensive short- and medium-term interventions are required to mitigate the effects of food insecurity. This includes humanitarian response in emergency situations as well as directed measures to strengthen food production systems and markets as well as the expansion of social protection systems, including school feeding.