Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa

As policymakers and development practitioners aim to boost adoption of new technologies to promote sustainable agricultural development, they are increasingly turning to private sector companies for help. These companies can often provide marketing and financial incentives that the public sector cannot, making them an important potential pathway to reach farmers and increase their use of new technologies.

Livestock supports the livelihoods of around 1 billion people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (Thorne and Conroy 2017, Baltenweck et al. 2020). However, growth and productivity of the livestock sector in many LMICs are not keeping pace with the increasing demand for animal-source foods. Boosting the sector’s productivity is crucial for poverty reduction in LMICs, which continue to face multifaceted challenges and shocks that threaten the sustainability of food systems. This, in turn, requires reliable livestock data for informing livestock policies and investments.

Humanitarian agencies around the world face a never-ending race against time to save lives in places where conflicts, extreme weather, and other shocks lead to collapsing economies, leaving populations facing hunger and other forms of food insecurity.

The past forty years have brought both progress and new challenges for African agriculture. While overall per capita food supplies have become more stable and agricultural productivity has improved, the region’s dependence on food imports has increased, from 39 percent between 1985-2000 to 46.6 percent between 2016-2023. In addition, the food security, livelihoods, and overall well-being of wide swathes of Africa’s population remain more vulnerable than ever before to the negative impacts of climate change, political instability and conflict, and economic shocks.

From 2010-2020, Nigeria experienced a sharp rise in violence propagated by the jihadist group Boko Haram in the northeast region and escalating inter-group conflict between farmers and Fulani pastoralists in the north-central region. Boko Haram’s violent attacks led to states of emergency in both 2011 and 2013; and while that group has dominated the news, conflicts between Fulani pastoralists and settled agricultural communities are often more deadly.