Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

The pressures placed on the global food system during COVID-19 activated various policy responses across the world to manage supply and demand. Sub-Saharan African countries rely heavily on food imports. This means that international agricultural policy responses to the pandemic in markets on which Africa relies, directly affect the region’s food markets. Potential impacts include “commodity price volatility the availability of supplies and farmers’ planting decisions”. Consider how to address the impacts of COVID and build food system resilience for the future with regard to countries that rely on food imports:

• Design more “holistic policy interventions” which tackle bottlenecks in the vast span of “value chain actors” e.g. suppliers and transporters, traders and retailers, to advance resilience of the entire supply chain
• Invest in market infrastructure, e.g. cold storage systems, to strengthen supply chains of perishable goods
• Establish and increase social protections for particularly vulnerable groups e.g. “urban poor, informal workers and resource-poor smallholder farmers"
• Advance regional and local trade agreements that enable greater food market integration – with the aim of developing resilient domestic and regional food systems, lowering the reliance on importing, and increasing local domestic economic growth

Researchers believe that the main threat to the blood supply is not COVID-19 itself, but the unintended consequences of social distancing on blood donations. This has resulted in uncertain patterns of demand for blood and reductions in donations. Consider:

• Monitoring the supply and demand in hospital based and transfusion services so sufficient blood stocks are maintained to support ongoing critical needs e.g. for major trauma
• Mitigating (theoretical) transmission of COVID-19 from asymptomatic individuals e.g.:
  • Persons donating blood must inform donation centres if they develop a respiratory illness within 14 days of the donation
  • Persons should refrain from donating blood if they have travelled to areas with high community transmission
  • Persons who have recovered from diagnosed COVID-19 should not donate blood for 14 days after full recovery
• How to mitigate staff and donor exposure to COVID-19 through appropriate PPE and sanitation
• How to mitigate donor decline through clear, proactive and consistent communication strategies to address and overcome donor anxiety which often stem from misinformation
• Systems to enable re-entry of COVID-19 infected donors to donation centres after full recovery

More information from the WHO can be found here.

The shock to global supply and demand resulting from COVID-19 has exacerbated workers' vulnerability to modern slavery. Consider supply chain management approaches that reduce the risks of worker exploitation by increasing firms' resilience to cope with highly volatile and extreme events, such as COVID 19. Consider:

• ensuring there is capacity to audit suppliers and their workforces to detect and remediate instances of labour exploitation
• how to maintain transparency in the supply chain so that risky supplier behaviour, such as unauthorised subcontracting, can be traced
• circumventing organisations with known malpractices in order to meet demand e.g. in the US, an import ban has been lifted to receive supply from a large Malaysian manufacturer of medical gloves accused of using forced labour
• liaising with support mechanisms for those at risk of modern slavery, such as faith and community organisations and helplines to monitor wellbeing
• collaborate with unions, NGOs, and other expert stakeholders to increase supply chain transparency and allow for a proactive detection on deteriorating working conditions

Addressing the equality of food systems can help support their resilience. Consider:

• Improving the local economy and the food system simultaneously by growing locally, and employing the local population
• Urban farms for local food production e.g. utilising school gardens
• Engaging neighbourhood leaders to improve understanding of who needs assistance
• Improving sustainability e.g. drive through markets to keep markets open during lockdowns and avoid waste from spoilage, as well as giving smaller sellers security in selling produce
• Enabling community food parcels to be ordered in a similar way to ordering food deliveries
• Improving the food sector workers' protection to help prevent COVID-19 infection
• Keeping school cafeterias open for collection of meals for vulnerable children

Globally, supply chains face challenges in responding to disruptions as a result of COVID-19. Consider:

• Contingency plans that adequately review project controls, risk management and governance processes to provide early warnings of risk impact e.g. a second wave of COVID-19, and the cost, time or contractual impacts of this
• How changes to demand, use and other consumer behaviours will place extra pressure on revenues
• How restrictions on people's movements impact productivity
• How alternative delivery methods and increased supply chain visibility can mitigate supply delays and expose key vulnerabilities
• How the use of advanced controls and technology can ensure more efficient use of resources and better decision-making
• Strategies for transparent communication with all stakeholders, including employees and every party along the supply chain. This can boost reputations, morale and trust among all stakeholders

Spontaneous supply chains (SSC) emerge during a crisis to meet unmet demand. They may fill a gap locally or nationally i.e. transformation in manufacturing and production. In the USA, Amish communities have shifted their production from woodwork and carpentry organised by men, to the production of facemasks by women. Women were sewing up to 50,000 face masks per day that met hospital sanctioned quality control. Consider:

• How SSC can be integrated into formal supply chains to ensure quality and efficiency
• How SSC can be integrated into local government efforts. Many SSCs are locally driven and so integration into existing local supply chains would increase their efficiency and effectiveness
• How to build firm-frim relations to support SSC integration e.g. building trust, developing contracts, designing management systems
• Opportunities for staying connected to local communities that have capacity to support