<p>Informational deficits constrain the ability of governments, service-providers and funders to make evidence-based decisions about how best to respond to the evolving needs of rural populations, and challenges to food security in developing countries, associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) proposes to conduct a multi-country survey of up to 11,000 smallholder farmers, and a sample of agro-dealers, to assess the impact of the pandemic and mitigation efforts.PAD is uniquely positioned to conduct this work given the organization’s existing operational footprint, experience in designing and administering digital informational services, and research capabilities.</p>

<p>The lockdown in South Asia has led to mass migration of people back to their home towns/villages as the work opportunities in urban centres shrink or are no longer available.This poses a public health risk to rural areas as migrants may spread the virus when they return and these areas are ill-prepared to handle the crisis due to poor healthcare infrastructure.Preliminary analysis by Shonchoy (2020) has shown that this is indeed likely since the outbreaks outside of Dhaka have been strongly correlated with migration patterns, potentially due to returning migrants bringing the disease from Dhaka, Chittagong or internationally.</p>

<p>India is vulnerable to both the health and economic impacts of COVID-19.To contain the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24.To help alleviate hardships to the poor, the central government also announced a US$23 billion relief package and various state governments have announced relief measures.There is an urgent need to monitor the implementation of these programs at a large-scale to ensure rapid course-corrections, ground-level feedback, and targeted resource allocation to geographies and populations that are most in need.</p>