Food Insecurity during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Burkina Faso

Pouirketa Rita Nikiema, Université Norbert Zongo
F. Antoine Dedewanou, Carleton University

This paper investigates the implication of the COVID-19 pandemic on households’ food insecurity in Burkina Faso. We use data from the Burkina Faso High Frequency Phone Survey collected during the period June 2020 and June 2021 by the World Bank. To assess the persistence in food insecurity, we estimate a dynamic ordinary least squares regression. Our results reveal that female and the elderly household members were more likely to experience food insecurity than their respective counterparts. For households that skipped a meal due to the pandemic, the likelihood of facing food insecurity in the subsequent month increased by 37 per cent. While other shocks can cause food insecurity, the global health-related, economic, social, and information dimensions of the COVID-19 created a distinctive and multifaced form of food shortages that sets it apart from many other types of shocks.