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Our window of opportunity for achieving SDG 2 — eradicating hunger and malnutrition and ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all by 2030 — is closing rapidly. However, far from moving closer to that goal, the world has seen a resurgence of hunger and food insecurity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented countries with enormous policy challenges. Policymakers have had to balance limited resources between health, food systems, and economies in a continually evolving public health emergency and an associated recession. Low-income countries have faced especially difficult choices because of their limited budgets and administrative capacity.

High-frequency monitoring of access to food has become especially important during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Food access in Nigeria, and across the globe, has significantly worsened since the start of the pandemic due to significant disruptions to food supply chains and widespread loss of income.  Poor access to food can have both short- and long-term impacts on health and wellbeing and is thus an important targeting criteria.

This piece originally appeared on IFPRI.org .

The COVID-19 pandemic has crippled a number of African agricultural exports, while dependency on food imports and lower purchasing power across much of the continent threaten to push millions more into food insecurity and poverty. A Sept. 17 IFPRI policy seminar , organized with the support of USAID, explored the interaction of the pandemic’s macroeconomic and microeconomic effects, and how Africa must grapple with global and regional markets in order to recover economically.

By Obayelu Abiodun Elijah and Obayelu Oluwakemi Adeola