Accounts of Crisis: Poor People’s Experiences of the Food, Fuel and Financial Crises in Five Countries: Report on a Pilot Study in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya and Zambia, January-March 2009

Abstract

As the global financial crisis begins to strike developing countries, the evidence in this report is that the food and fuel crises are by no means over. Research conducted in February 2009 in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya and Zambia finds that food prices have not come down everywhere, nor by enough. It finds that global crises are compounded locally by adverse climate conditions and difficult political transitions in a number of locations, contributing to uncertainty around agricultural production and local economic decline. Compound, complex crises are interacting with each other, making it difficult to disentangle their impacts on people’s lives.

Keywords: food crisis, global financial crisis, poverty, gender, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Zambia