Two Years into the Crisis Signs of Severe Coping Strategies.pdfVIP

SoCIAl ANd ECoNoMIC PolICY WorKING BrIEFS MARCH 2010 UNICEF POLICY AND PRACTICE Two Years into the Crisis: Signs of Severe Coping Strategies that are Impacting on Children • Emerging real and close to It has been two years since the first international food price spike affected real time data are showing countries’ access to world food markets. Since the onset in early-to-mid signs of severe coping 2008, international food prices have relaxed but remain well above their strategies that are raising long-run averages. In many countries, national food prices have remained risks faced by children and sticky, and in some have actually continued to ascend in 2009 (World other vulnerable groups Bank, 2010). The global economic slowdown has compounded high food prices by eroding income and purchasing power in many parts of the • While rapid data world. UNICEF’s efforts to track child and maternal nutrition have raised assessments are alarms for many countries that had already indicated serious challenges not intended to be even before the brunt of the food price volatility and global economic representative or fully slowdown (UNICEF, 2009). This working brief draws on ongoing work by conclusive they provide UNICEF and its partners, and it surveys recent emerging evidence relating important warnings of to how households are coping with the aggregate shocks in 2008 and households are coping 2009. The main finding is stark: field reports and surveys by think tanks, during crises the UN and other development agencies confirm the