The
second edition of the Regional Overview of Food Insecurity in sub-Saharan
Africa (2016) reveals that some 153 million people, representing about 26 percent
of the population above 15 years of age in sub-Saharan Africa, suffered from
severe food insecurity in 2014/15.
“What it means is that, around one out of four
individuals above 15 years of age in sub-Saharan Africa was hungry but did not eat or went without eating for a
whole day for lack of money or other resources for food,” remarked Bukar
Tijani, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa.
“This assessment underlines the significance
of the challenge facing the region in meeting SDGs’ target 2.1 and the
relevance of sustainable and substantial support to food security and nutrition
policies and programmes in the region,” he added.
On the aggregate level, sub-Saharan Africa
achieved adequate food availability over the 2014–2016 period, with a Dietary
Energy Supply (DES) of 110.
However,
several countries in the region remain highly dependent on food imports to
ensure adequate food supplies, with some sub-regions depending on imports for
up to a third of their cereal needs.
This indicates that substantial demand for
food exists for these countries, and there is a need to increase agricultural
productivity, food production and value addition, among other things.
The Sierra Leone’s Minister of Agriculture,
Forestry and Food Security, Patrick Monty Jones, noted that the agriculture in
sub-Saharan Africa is strongly based on household, small-scale farming, and
that majority of African farmers cultivate less than 10 per cent of their land,
which could be attributed to many factors including poor governance of land
tenure and shocks and stresses due to climate change resulting to food
insecurity.
“To overcome these challenges, the
agricultural sector strategic objectives and priority activities should include
increased production and productivity of staple food crops through value chain
approach for food security, promote commercial agriculture; promote and
increase value-adding activities for agricultural products, increase the
production and export of cash crops, and improve access to finance for
farmers,” he recommended.
The report recognizes the need to spur a
broad-based economic transformation, particularly in the agricultural sector,
which is the major source of income in sub-Saharan Africa, to generate a
substantial reduction in poverty and improve food accessibility.
It cites unstable food markets and commodity
prices and natural disasters, including severe droughts and floods leading to
failed crops, insufficient pasture feed and water for livestock, as well as
persistent political instability, conflicts and other forms of violence as the
main triggers of food insecurity and malnutrition in the region.
On average per capita income, the report says
it is three times lower in sub-Saharan Africa than in other regions of the
world in 2014, although it witnessed a 30 percent increase between 1990 and
2014.
Also, poverty levels declined in the region
but remained the highest in the world, with the region being far from halving
the proportion of people living in poverty.
Moreover, even though some progress is being
made in reducing malnutrition, evidence shows that many countries in the region
suffer from a triple burden of malnutrition, that is, under-nutrition,
micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity, the latter being
responsible for rising levels of non-communicable diseases.
Key social intervention strategies
According to the report, a varied number of
comprehensive social protection policy frameworks and institutional
arrangements have been introduced in the region to integrate nutrition and
agriculture.
In this regard, Bukar Tijani observes that “it
is imperative for countries to adopt multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary
approaches in integrating agriculture, nutrition, social protection and related
measures by realigning, integrating and coordinating activities and
accountability mechanisms to deliver evidence-based sustainable nutrition
solutions and outcomes.”
The report also calls on countries to review
and exert efforts in order to improve the translation of political commitments
and declarations into effective programmes on the ground, particularly in the
context of the ambitious targets set in the Malabo Declaration for 2025 and the
Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030.
It laments that several documented policy
commitments and strategies are yet to generate the expected results, but says
that many country experiences illustrate the feasibility of eliminating hunger
and malnutrition through the right combination of cross-sectoral policies and
programmes.
Policy reforms
The report advocates for continued policy
reforms to sharpen their focus, and the creation of an enabling environment for
investment and participation by all relevant stakeholders, saying that this is
critical to ending hunger, and achieving food security and improved nutrition.
It specifically calls for the development of
innovative resource mobilization from a broad set of stakeholders from the
public and private sector and financial instruments that would enable the implementation
of actions in a sustained and widespread manner to scale up food security and
nutrition programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.
“As the magnitude and impact of crises and
disasters increase – aggravated by the overexploitation of natural resources
and climate change – more and more households, communities and governments in
the region are less able to absorb, recover and adapt, making them increasingly
vulnerable to future shocks,” the report said.
The report urges governments to intensify
their efforts to ensure that years of gradual agricultural development gains
are not wiped out by recurrent shocks, adding that increasing the resilience of
agricultural livelihoods and promoting and financing climate-smart agricultural
practices would be a powerful lever to reach the pledge of the Sustainable
Development Goals “to leave no one behind”.
Furthermore, immediate short, medium and
long-term measures are needed to promote and scale up appropriate technologies
to adapt and mitigate climate variability and change, to develop resilience
monitoring and evaluation frameworks, and to minimize the impacts of El Niño on
affected communities.
“Building resilience through peace-building
efforts is critical to food security and nutrition. In armed conflict and protracted
crises, protecting, saving and rebuilding agricultural livelihoods to save
lives and create the conditions for longer-term resilience is a key step
towards ensuring peace and stability. The critical role of the agriculture
sector in crisis situations must not be overlooked and necessary investments
need to be made,” the report recommends.
(23
February 2017, Freetown)