Food Security and Nutrition Monitoring Report (FSNMS) –Ghana, 1st Edition: June 2020 - Released: August 2020

SUMMARY AND KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

• A large majority (76%) of the 1600 households interviewed indicated that prices of food commodities had increased in June, compared to the same period in 2019. For example, prices of cassava and plantain recorded significant increases of 206% and 413%, respectively, across markets in Kumasi. However, the price of maize decreased marginally across all the major markets. The increase in the prices of food commodities could be due to the fact that the month of June is generally considered a lean/hunger period.

• While the Ashanti, Central, Eastern and Western regions recorded increases in prices of most food commodities, the Northern, Bono East, and Upper West regions, on the other hand, recorded decreases. In comparison with the previous month of May 2020, about 47% of households indicated that food prices had increased.

• About one in every six households (15.6%) said they could not access the market or grocery shops during the month of June. The main reasons cited were the lack of money (62.9%), the COVID-19 pandemic (22.2%) and closure of markets and shops (5.6%).

• Using the Food Consumption Score as a proxy, the data showed that nearly all the households interviewed (91.5%) were food secure, while fewer than one in 10 were considered moderately food insecure (7.7%) or severely food insecure (0.8%).
  The few households that were considered moderately or severely food insecure were from the Bono, Bono East, Northern, Greater Accra and Ashanti regions.

• About a quarter (24.2%) of the households interviewed were found to have used various coping strategies, such as eating less preferred food, borrowing food or relying on help from relatives, limiting or reducing portion sizes of meals, and reducing the number of meals eaten per day, to deal with the shortage of food or lack of money to buy food during the month of June. One in 20 (5%) of the households had to sell household assets as a coping strategy to buy food within the previous 30 days.

• Food security is expected to be bolstered by the harvest of the 2020/2021 major season, which begins from July to September 2020.

• Less children attended Child Welfare Clinics (CWC) in Q2 in 2020 compared to Q2 2019.

• The number of children born in health facilities and put to the breast within the first hour of life has reduced.

• There has been an increase in the number of children who access vitamin A supplementation in 2020, compared to 2019.

• The number of underweight children in Q2 of 2020 is less than in the same period last year.