Impact of COVID-19 crisis on agriculture: evidence from five Sub-Saharan African countries
The brief leverages COVID-19 high frequency phone survey (HFPS) data collected primarily by National Statistics Offices (NSO) 2 of five SSA countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda), with support from the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice teams. These five countries are part of the LSMS - Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) project that fields multi-topic household surveys with a focus on agriculture. Thus, the households included in the HFPS are sub-samples of LSMS-ISA households interviewed in the most recent face-to-face interviews in respective countries. A uniform methodology was adopted in sampling, weighting, and implementing the survey across the countries, making cross-country comparison feasible. While the phone surveys began after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the timing of implementation varies across countries, as does the intensity of the pandemic and the local restrictions (see Annex I for an illustration of survey timing and COVID-19 response).