The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to increase global extreme poverty to about 150 million people by 2021. While it is difficult to state the full socio-economic impact of the pandemic, it is envisaged to have adverse effects on vulnerable groups and participants within informal sectors of many economies, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations report that the achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is being threatened by poverty, inequality, and exclusion; as a result, the most vulnerable are being further marginalized.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is currently collaborating with SNV Netherlands Development Organization under the umbrella of its Voice for Change Partnership (V4CP) in Kenya, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Honduras, and Indonesia. Within this research program, V4CP intended implementing a research project to better understand the nature and consequences of food losses in 12 districts spread across the 3 northern regions – Upper West, Northern and Upper East.

The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) has been engaged to undertake an independent monitoring of the Environmental and Social Sustainability Interventions Project (ESSP), which aims at ensuring environmentally sustainable practices, women’s empowerment and the elimination of child labour in the 50 cocoa producing districts. This monitoring assignment is geared towards assessing the achievement of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which COCOBOB has agreed with the international lenders of the medium-term loan facility to implement the ESSP.

mNutrition is a global initiative supported by DFID, organized by GSMA, and implemented by in-country mobile network operators (MNOs) to use mobile technology to improve the health and nutritional status of children and adults in the developing world.