The quest to ensure food security for the urban poor 

Food, a necessity, sometimes may be associated with emotions. Sometimes it has its place in the core structure of a celebration. It is what comforts us when we are lonely and what binds us when we are together. However, for many, food is still primarily that which ensures the sustenance of our biological life.

To many, access to fresh and nutritious food is taken for granted. But for others, it is impeded by numerous challenges including the impacts of climate change, rising prices, inequality and the market disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

People around the world are still suffering from the domino effects brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has worked as a powerful wake-up call exposing the true state of affairs of our progress on food security and nutrition.

According to the UN, it is estimated that between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020. And nearly one in three people in the world (that is, approximately 2.37 billion) did not have access to adequate food in 2020 – that's an increase of almost 320 million people in just one year.

Today, let me introduce you to Rabeya. Just two years ago, Rabeya had to go to bed hungry each night. For as long as she can remember – from her childhood days with her parents to the time she spent with her husband and children – she had one meal a day. Starvation was commonplace. To her, the definition of 'nutritious and healthy food' was just food.

"It all seemed healthy to us as long as we could have something to eat multiple times a day every day, even if it was just plain rice with water and salt," said Rabeya.

File Photo: Collected

40-year-old Rabeya lives in the Duaripara area of Dhaka with her three children – Shakila (22), Rupa (19) and Anas (12). Her husband passed away some years back. Rabeya has been living in Dhaka since her childhood days. While most of her life was spent in Old Dhaka, she moved to Duaripara after getting married and has been living there for the past 23 years.

Rabeya's husband was a rickshaw puller and Rabeya used to occasionally work in people's houses. Together their income used to provide for their family's day-to-day expenses. However, with her husband's sudden death and the economic havoc wreaked by Covid-19, Rabeya was left with no means of supporting herself and her three children. Her income was far less than her husband's and the pandemic restrictions meant she could not work as a house help. She was jobless – and soon to be homeless.

The pandemic caused catastrophic losses to women employed in 2020. In absolute numbers, globally, 54 million women lost their jobs whereas 60 million men became unemployed during the pandemic. However, in relative terms, job losses were larger for women, at 4.2% compared to 3% for men, according to the ILO. 

House rent, food costs, school and coaching fees were piling up – it was as if Rabeya was drowning in debt. She relocated to less expensive accommodation. Her younger daughter, Rupa, had to stop going to school because they couldn't afford school fees anymore. Days passed into months and she and her children lived a bare life, surviving on bare, minimum food.

Millions of people around the world like Rabeya cannot afford food, let alone a healthy diet. This puts them at high risk of food insecurity and malnutrition. 

Globally, malnutrition affects more than 2 billion people in the world, and in Bangladesh, 35% of the population remains food insecure, according to icddrb. This is startling because enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet. How is it that in the midst of abundance, the global social structure enforces scarcity?

Additionally, the concept of a healthy diet needs to go beyond the number of calories consumed and should rather focus on a healthier balance with a diverse range of foods. A diverse, balanced diet would include more nutritious food such as protein-rich pulses, fish, eggs, milk and meat, as well as vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables.

To that end, the WFP-BRAC emergency food assistance project provides households in low-income communities with a QR card through which they can purchase nutritious food from designated vendors in their areas. The QR card is pegged to a mobile financial service account which is filled up with Tk3,000 each month with cash-back incentives. Rabeya is part of this assistance project which helps contribute to the good health of marginalised people through the consumption of nutritious food and the improvement of their technological knowledge.

File Photo of TCB selling Soybean oil/TBS

Being a part of this project for over 14 months, Rabeya can now identify and fluently state the names of nutritious foods. She ensures her family consumes eggs, milk, fortified rice, apples, spinach, papaya and more on a regular basis.

For Rabeya, her days of worrying about food are gone. She now focuses on herself and her children. With the pandemic restrictions lifted, she has begun working in houses again and paying her children's school and tuition dues. She has also been able to set up a fuchka cart right outside her house with the money she used to spend on food every month. She earns around Tk6,000-8,000 every month from the cart and manages to fulfil not only her family's immediate needs but their wants as well.

This World Food Day, let's celebrate all the Rabeyas around us. Let's back them as they rise from the devastating impact of a global pandemic that deprived millions of people of their health, lives and livelihoods throughout the world.

Samia Mallik is a manager of Knowledge Management, Innovations and Communications at BRAC Bangladesh. 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.