Browse by Theme: Food Security

After 10 years of conflict and humanitarian crisis in Syria, this research seeks to better understand Syrian women’s experiences during the past decade, with a focus on how their lives have changed, the livelihoods strategies they have employed, and their experiences with food insecurity.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit Mali, most families CARE works with that had been eating three meals a day suddenly had to drop to eating only once a day. The combination of markets closing, quarantine measures, and falling incomes meant that people had to conserve food carefully. Six months later, most of those families are eating three meals a day again. Why? Because local communities mobilised to share information, and worked with CARE to distribute cash transfers to the families most in need.

“I felt like life will go on, and we are able to find new ways to live a better life.” Nidal is one of more than 150,000 people who worked with CARE’s Food For Peace project to improve food security in Syria. From growing more food, to building bakeries, to monitoring quality — Syrians drove dramatic improvements in their own livelihoods.

This CARE report exposes how COVID-19 has exaggerated food insecurity in conflict-torn regions including Yemen, South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, and Democratic Republic of Congo. The report argues that unless urgent action is taken, repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic could nearly double the number of people experiencing serious food insecurity before the end of 2020.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are exposing the existing flaws in food systems, many of which stem from gender inequalities and the unfair treatment of women and girls. Rising hunger and food shortages are also putting additional burdens on women, from mental health risks to gender-based violence. This report, based on a CARE analysis of 73 global reports proposing solutions to the hunger pandemic, shows that responses to COVID-19 and related hunger crises are either ignoring women and girls or treating them as victims who have no role in addressing the problems they face.

Families who participated in the Nampula Adaptation to Climate Change project in northern Mozambique were able to grow more food, better respond to crises, and save more money. Adopting many climate change conscious practices in their fields helped them achieve this. One of the things families invested in when they got more savings and credit was their children’s education. Here is more about what the project achieved.

In the West Bank and Gaza, CARE helped farmers raise milk production by 10% and reduced the cost of water by 80%. To achieve this it wasn’t enough to look at just a farmer’s skills or livestock techniques. We had to look at the whole market system and use rigorous research to guide the programmes. In the West Bank and Gaza, although the market system faces threats every day, it’s still the best bet for sustainable change. Here is what we achieved and how we did it.