IAMO Forum 2022 “Enhancing resilience in a post-pandemic era: challenges and opportunities for rural development”

The Corona pandemic has affected rural areas in various ways all over the world. Its impacts stretched to agricultural trade, international mobility, livelihoods in rural areas and many other development aspects. Although agricultural production and food consumption remained on a rather stable path from a macroeconomic point of view, many effects at the level of rural households are still unknown and especially poorer countries may be faced with setbacks in their (rural) development efforts. How, for instance, will the drop in aggregate remittance flows spark off as a driver of poverty at the individual and community level? Are there long-lasting effects of personal illness on agricultural production or government’s containment measures at food supply chains to be expected? Which farms and rural areas are more resilient than others? Recent conceptualisations of resilience stress the adaptability of farms and households which will determine their resistance to future shocks. Often attention from policy and research dissipates quickly after acute events passed. However, when looking at the effects of this pandemic we should consider what are the long-term lessons from earlier crises such as the 2008 financial crisis, e.g., for remittance dependent households? Did at least some of them adapt and developed new livelihood strategies? How did agricultural trade flows adjust to shocks and do food import dependent countries with a more diversified trade structure enjoy a better food and nutrition security?

Date: 22 – 24 June 2022
Venue: Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Theodor-Lieser-Str. 2, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany

The conference will be organised by EEGA Member IAMO (department Agricultural Policy) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA. The conference language will be English.

More information on the conference is available at www.iamo.de/forum/2022.