Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security among East and West African pastoralists

The focus of attention regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been on direct health outcomes and the macroeconomic impacts of control measures. Here we review the available evidence about the food security impacts of the pandemic on pastoralists in Eastern and Western Africa. While pastoralism occurs on more than 50% of the world's land area, the landscapes that pastoralists exploit tend to be remote and highly variable arid and semi-arid lands with low population densities. Over time pastoralists have developed sophisticated mechanisms to enhance their self-sufficiency. At the same time, remoteness and sociopolitical marginalization have resulted in higher rates of food insecurity and underdevelopment among pastoralists relative to more sedentary populations. These dynamics tend to be intractable to standardized food security, malnutrition, and economic development interventions. The COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to a worsening of food security trends in pastoralist areas of East and West Africa due to a multiplicity of factors, including the closure of livestock markets, movement restrictions, disruptions of supply chains and livestock production inputs, reduced frequency and quality of human and animal healthcare delivery, and lost income from complementary livelihoods. It opens, however, space for innovations that may contribute to the food-secure future of pastoralism, including adapting a One Health approach that addresses the social, economic, and environmental health determinants of food security among African pastoralists.