Journal of Agriculture and Food Research (Jun 2021)
Nepal at the edge of sword with two edges: The COVID-19 pandemics and sustainable development goals
Abstract
Humanity has been threatened by pandemics since several decades with devastating effects on all human activities including the economy, and environment. Currently, the world is reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major threat to the livelihood of billions of people worldwide. Nepal is not an exception to this and has been seriously threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The thousands of the peoples who depend on daily wages to join hand to mouth has been under the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic because of job loss, disruption in the food supply chain. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic has thwarted Nepal's targets to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals including an unprecedented state of vulnerability to hunger and poverty in the country. Though some informal shreds of evidence have reported the negative impacts of COVID-19 on Sustainable Development Goals, none of the scientific literature has been available regarding such impacts in Nepal yet. This review aims to synthesize extant literature that reports the effects of COVID-19 on the Nepalese economy and implications for achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals.We found that the COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges to achieve the country's committed United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals for Nepal. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique “income shock” that is supposed to precipitate household food insecurity in developing economy like Nepal. Our review indicated that the percentage of populations below poverty could rise even more than the present national reported value of 18% in the post-pandemic era. We emphasized generating employment and income-earning opportunities to build a resilient food system. Further, we urged to build international consensus to reset and rethink the course of sustainable development goals.
