Infrastructure

Conflict continues to drive acute food insecurity and food assistance needs in Sudan, according to a recent FEWS Net alert.

Fighting in the country has expanded into Sudan’s southeast region, a major agricultural production and food storage area. The region typically accounts for more than 50 percent of Sudan’s annual domestic cereal production. Conflict-led disruptions to both agricultural production and trade, including destruction of infrastructure, pose a substantial threat to food availability throughout the country, reports FEWS Net.

As crop prices move throughout the year, they influence households’ consumption decisions, farmers’ production decisions, and traders’ marketing decisions. As such, it is important to understand price seasonality in local contexts in order to design appropriate policy interventions. A new working paper and policy note from IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program look at such price movements in grain prices in Kebbi state, Nigeria.

Food security has long been a development goal in Africa south of the Sahara, as well as in other developing regions. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly recognized that basic food security – simply having enough food to eat – is not enough to ensure long-term, sustainable growth and development. Rather, nutrition security – having enough high-quality, nutrient-dense food to eat – is needed to improve health outcomes, drive economic growth, and end hunger in all its forms.

Africa played an important part of the conversation at the 2017 G20 Summit with the launch of the G20 Africa Partnership for sustainable development. Following on the G20 Africa Partnership Conference held in Berlin in June 2017, this new initiative highlights the need for private investment, sustainable infrastructure growth, and education in the region. Efforts will focus on improved infrastructure, increased investment in market access and education, particularly for women and youth, and improved capacity-building programs.

Efforts to increase rural incomes and reduce rural poverty in developing countries often focus on policies to lower transport costs and increase market access among poor and remote rural populations. Despite the growing importance of such policies, however, it is not entirely clear to what extent and through which channels increased market access impacts rural individuals’ and households’ nutrition outcomes and overall wellbeing. A recent paper published in World Development seeks to answer these questions in the context of rural Ethiopia.