Recommendation 9

HM Government Acknowledged

The pandemic has exacerbated an already worsening global picture, where progress on growth and poverty reduction had slowed. The indirect impacts of covid-19 have been severe for the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, with the effect most marked on the poorest and most vulnerable. As the Committee notes, this is particularly marked in agriculture where almost two-thirds of the world’s poorest people work. The pandemic has also contributed to a worsening of the gender poverty gap. The newly poor are more urban, likely to work in informal sectors, and also live across middle income countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. FCDO has taken a number of steps to mitigate this impact. We agree that, in determining the design and implementation of these ODA-funded programmes, we should work closely with recipient organisations, aid partners and local NGOs. We have taken this approach wherever appropriate as indicated in the examples below. We note that the Committee welcomed the Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility (VSCF), which seeks to enable vulnerable people and supply chains to recover from and remain resilient to the economic and social impacts of covid-19, by leveraging the reach and influence of responsible businesses through partnerships in the agriculture and garments Eighth Special Report of Session 2019–21 13 sector, including with NGOs. VSCF interventions are tailored to meeting the needs of women through health awareness and gender-based violence programming, ensuring a safe and sustainable future for the female garment workers. VSCF is also an example of fashion retailers working with suppliers to address the impact of covid-19 in their supply chains. In food and agriculture, we have adapted many of our programmes to address covid-19 impacts, including supporting smaller agribusinesses to stay in the market, protect jobs along supply chains, diversify production, reduce costs and use new digital platforms and technologies. For example, our Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness programme has worked with Small and Medium Enterprises in Uganda and Nepal to digitise parts of their value chains in sesame, beans, vegetable and dairy. This has helped them to cope with the immediate effects of covid-19 related interruptions and drops in business activity and demand, as well as leapfrogging innovations. The programme has also helped dairy value chain businesses in Nepal to access local financial support to survive the economic shock and supported them to rapidly develop new products, for example ones with longer shelf lives. The UK-supported Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) has helped the All-Bangladesh Farmers’ Society national network to set up 57 call centres between farmers, input dealers and traders and keeping food supply chains open, and farm gate prices fair. About 30,000 small-scale farmers have benefitted (46% women), with the potential to reach many more through other projects that are replicating the approach. GAFSP has also stepped up in highly fragile contexts and has helped some of the most affected people cope better, shored up livelihoods and connected farmers sustainably to markets. UK support is also helping businesses survive and respond to the crisis by increasing understanding of the opportunities of producing covid-19-related goods, such as where demand is coming from, as well as where to source the necessary inputs. In Ethiopia, our support to removing bottlenecks for five companies succeeded in existing jobs being saved and unlocking production capacity of 100,000 face masks and 24,000 litres of sanitiser per day. FCDO is currently reviewing its spending plans for financial year 2021/22, including its support to strengthening the economic resilience of low-income groups through multi- year programmes. 14 Eighth Special Report of Session 2019–21