What's New

Africa’s progress toward hunger and poverty reduction has faced significant setbacks in recent years. Multiple shocks, including global and regional conflicts and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have increased the prevalence of undernutrition and child malnutrition; in addition, significant micronutrient deficiencies persist in the region.

The CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies Nigeria has released the new Nigeria Food Security Simulator. This Excel-based tool allows users to estimate short-term impacts of household-level income or food price shocks and related policy decisions on diets and food security in the country.

An estimated 23 percent of Nigeria’s GDP comes from agriculture, and as many as 70 percent of the nation’s labor force engages in the agricultural sector. At the same time, approximately 40 percent of Nigerians face poverty and food insecurity, driven in part by low agricultural productivity and low levels of technology adoption. With climate shocks expected to become more frequent and extreme, these smallholder households will be even more vulnerable to reduced agricultural productivity, loss of incomes and livelihoods, and food and nutrition insecurity.

While some countries in Africa South of the Sahara have seen improvements in food security in 2023, the region as a whole continues to be plagued by food crises, according to the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2023 Midyear Update. East Africa has been the hardest hit, with nearly 65 million people in the region having experienced high levels of acute food insecurity in the first half of 2023, up 8 million from 2022.

On May 12 in Abuja, Nigeria, two CGIAR initiatives—Fragility, Conflict and Migration (FCM) and National Policies and Strategies (NPS)—brought together policymakers, researchers, and representatives from the private sector and civil society to discuss how to advance food systems resilience amid crises while empowering women and youth. The workshop invited research presentations from six other CGIAR research initiatives working in Nigeria and facilitated lively discussion among all.