Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the reverberations of the coronavirus continue to take toll on people’s livelihoods, income and food security in the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean as food costs rise, hunger deepens and tourism, a major economic driver, continues to suffer.
“People are buying cheaper foods, purchasing in smaller quantities, drawing on savings and reducing other critical expenditures on health and education to make ends meet,” a newly released report by the United Nations World Food Program and the 15-member Caribbean Community known as Caricom concludes. “On top of these unsustainable measures, they report skipping meals, going to bed hungry and being worried about feeding their families.”
The Caribbean COVID-19 Food Security and Livelihoods Impact Survey is being released Tuesday. It was launched soon after the start of the pandemic to gather data on people’s livelihoods, access to markets and food security and provide snapshots of these impacts over time. This latest installment is the fourth and respondents were surveyed from Jan. 25 to Feb. 8 of this year. The survey was circulated via social media, media outlets, SMS and emails.
