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Africa saw strong economic growth between 2001 and 2010, averaging 5.3 percent, but that growth has often not reached poor rural populations. As the sector that supports the livelihoods of 90 percent of Africa’s population and employs 70 percent of the region’s poorest communities, agriculture stands to play an enormous role in increasing sustainable, inclusive economic growth on the continent.

Macroeconomic policies (monetary and fiscal policies, exchange rate policies, and trade policies) can significantly impact agricultural development and food security, and vice versa. This complex relationship is the subject of a new book , Macroeconomics, Agriculture, and Food Security: A Guide to Policy Analysis in Developing Countries , written by IFPRI Visiting Senior Research Fellow Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla.

Macroeconomic policies (monetary and fiscal policies, exchange rate policies, and trade policies) can significantly impact agricultural development and food security, and vice versa. This complex relationship is the subject of a new book , Macroeconomics, Agriculture, and Food Security: A Guide to Policy Analysis in Developing Countries , written by IFPRI Visiting Senior Research Fellow Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla.

The 2015-2016 El Niño cycle could bring significant flooding to areas of the eastern Horn of Africa, according to a new FEWS Net Alert released this week. Southern Ethiopia, eastern Kenya, and south-central Somalia are among the areas likely to be affected. FEWS NET warns that the situation could mirror the El Niño-driven floods and subsequent food insecurity seen in 1997, when flooding displaced close to 2 million people throughout the region and led to widespread crop and livestock loss.

The year 2015 saw the world’s focus transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals. According to a new World Bank report , the year is also predicted to see a significant drop in extreme poverty (defined as living with less than $1.90 per day according to the updated international poverty line), from 902 million people worldwide in 2012 to 702 million people in 2015, or 9.6 percent of the global population. This marks the first time that the percentage of global extreme poverty will fall to single-digit levels.