Attachments
Background
The war in Ukraine has major implications for food security and diets across the world, given both countries’ key roles in global food markets and Russia’s prominence in global energy trade. The resulting global food and economic crisis risks heightening inequalities and vulnerabilities in a world still confronting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, food system resilience is crucial to maintain or adapt its functions in the face of shocks, and ultimately for system sustainability. Through a series of key indicators, this brief describes how the food system has been affected by this ongoing crisis and provides an overview of its resilience and potential opportunities for building resilience further.
HOW HAS PAKISTAN BEEN EXPOSED TO SHOCKS SINCE 2020?
In the last 3 years, Pakistan has faced shocks that have affected the food system and its resilience in various ways. Like the rest of the world, Pakistan was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. To minimize COVID-19 spread, the government rapidly implemented strict containment strategies such as restrictions of movements and public gatherings among others, which can impact various domains of the food system (e.g., supply chain, consumer environment, consumer behaviors). Following the same timeline, the country also adopted supportive economic policies as part of their COVID-19 relief package, such as income support for the population (e.g., cash assistance to daily wage workers and low-income families) (Figure 1). The Pakistani currency (Pakistani Rupee, PKR) exchange rate – relative to the US dollar (USD) – has been relatively stable from 2013 to 2017 (between 102 and 106 PKR per USD) but underwent a depreciation in 2018-19 (from 106 in 2017 to 150 PKR per USD in 2019). During the crisis period, the PKR depreciation persisted in 2020, levelled off in 2021, and then increase sharply by 26% in 2022 to reach 205 PKR per USD, the highest level observed within the reporting period (Figure 2). The weakening of PKR in 2022 may have been a result from the devastating floods the country experienced that year, domestic political challenges, and the volatility in global financial markets resulting from the war in Ukraine.
Besides shocks related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Pakistan is also prone to numerous natural hazards, such as floods, landslides, earthquakes, and droughts. This is illustrated by the major floods that occurred in 2010 and 2022, which primarily contributed to the 10% and 14% of the Pakistani population that were affected by natural disasters these years (Figure 3). Due to a combination of political, geographic, and social factors, Pakistan is recognized as particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts and ranked 150th out of 185 countries in the 2021 ND-GAIN Index. As mentioned in a 2018 report, weather patterns get more erratic and frequency and/or intensity of extreme events are rising with climate change, potentially exacerbating vulnerabilities and impact on people food security, especially poor rural households which depend on small-scale, rainfed agriculture.