Covid-19 Food Aid

The households surveyed were also asked whether the distribution of the food items was gender sensitive. While about 28% of the respondents said they can’t tell, about 54 percent said it was not gender sensitive, which is staggering. Hence, it appears the distribution of the food items did not put a lot of emphasis on gender inclusiveness.

Reports on missing food items from the households surveyed are summarized above, which shows that about 78% of the households reported that they have a missing oil. About 26% and 27% of the respondents indicated that they have missing sugar and missing rice respectively. Thus, oil is the most reported missing food item, which resonates with informal discussion with some NDMA staff.

The survey also collected information from households surveyed on whether payment was requested during coupon disposal. The chart shows that about 99% of households surveyed said that officials who were distributing the food aid did not request for any payment while only about 1% said payment were requested for the coupons.

Before the supply of the food items, NDMA were supposed to issue coupons to all eligible households. As a result, the survey also collected information on coupons receipt. The chart above reveals the results. About 79% of households surveyed said they received the coupon before the distribution of the food items. Hence, about 21% of households surveyed reported that their household didn’t receive a coupon, which is staggering. Although, a substantial number of households received a coupon, the survey results shows that not all household got a coupon before receiving the food items.

The respondents were also asked whether there were discrepancies between the amount indicated in their voucher (coupon) and the amount of each food item they actually received. The results are shown above shows that about 86% households surveyed said there were no discrepancies. Hence, about 14% of the respondents reported that they were discrepancies, which is substantial. Out of those who said there were discrepancies, about 95.3% reported that they received less than what they were supposed to receive, and about 4.7% said they received more than what they were supposed to received.

The chart above shows the food items received by households. We see that about 99% of households that received the food aids said they got the rice, about 97% said they received the sugar, and about 85% said they received the oil. Therefore, the results indicate that, among the three (3) food items distributed, the percentage of respondents that reported that their household didn’t receive oil is the highest.

In terms of when they received the food aid, the chart above shows that majority of the households reported that they received the government food aid few months after the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. In particular, about 78% reported that they received their supplies of the food items between May and July 2020 and only 1.3% reported that they received theirs in October 2020, with about 21 percent reporting that their food supply was delivered between August and September.

Concerning receipt of the food aid, the results shows that about 85 percent of the households surveyed reported that they received the food aid with about 15 percent reporting that they didn’t receive, which indicates that the food aid has indeed delivered to more than three quarter of households in The Gambia.