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Pardee Center launches report with USAID titled, "The Future of Food Security in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic."

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Pardee Center for International Futures

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In November 2021, the Pardee Center launched a report with USAID titled, "The Future of Food Security in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Authors of the report include, Willem Verhagen, David Bohl, Mallory Cannon, Andres Pulido, Audrey Pirzadeh, Iris Nott, and Jonathan D. Moyer.

In barely two years, COVID-19 has set back progress in development efforts across the world and available data indicates there will likely be significant increases in extreme poverty, undernourishment, and child stunting in the coming years. But how will these effects persist, and what consequences will COVID-19 have for the future of food security?

Researchers at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, projected the pandemic’s effects to the year 2040 on economic growth, rising inequality, rising government debt, and education losses from school closures in 2020-2025, to explore their long-term impacts on extreme poverty, undernourishment, and child stunting. 

Using the International Futures (IFs) model, which focuses on long-term analysis of economic and human development conditions for 186 countries, the team compared three scenarios: 

  • A baseline COVID-19 Current Path scenario, which uses existing data and trends to project the effects of COVID-19 on economic growth, inequality, education loss, and rises in government debt.
  • A more pessimistic COVID-19 Unequal Paths scenario, which describes a world in which the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic worsen, and inequalities between countries rise, with additional negative effects primarily falling to low- and middle-income countries. 
  • A counterfactual no-COVID scenario, which projects long-term development trends in the world had the COVID-19 pandemic not occurred.

Learn more about The Future of Food Security in the Wake of COVID-19, watch a special presentation from Lead Researcher, Dr. Willem Verhagen of the Pardee Center, and learn more about his personal experience producing the report in the article Dr. Willem Verhagen and The Future of Food Security in the Wake of COVID-19.

View presentation here.

View interview with Willem Verhagen here.