What's New

Next week, the Africa south of the Sahara Food Security Portal will be presented at a side event during the 2015 ReSAKSS Conference. The event will focus on “Providing Timely Data and Analysis to Improve Food Security in Africa.”

The latest CGIAR report on the impact of climate change on African agriculture argues that increased regional temperatures and a greater risk of pests and diseases will affect crop, livestock, and fisheries productivity throughout Africa. Without effective adaptation measures, regional production of maize and beans could decrease by up to 40% relative to the period 1970-2000, leaving areas like Eastern and Southern Africa with a need to rapidly adapt in order to improve and ensure food security.

The Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Conference took place last month in Kenya. In this event, more than 1200 attendees representing governments, the private sector, the academy, and other civil society institutions, held meetings aimed to contribute to the development of Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EBA) approaches as a first step towards building resilient food systems, improving food security, and adapting to climate change in Africa.

This study (a joint undertaking by a number of researchers and published in World Development), conducts a meta-analysis which aims to expose the nature and magnitude of post-harvest losses in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to identify gaps in their assessment and mitigation. Post-harvest losses (PHL) are a crucial factor that affects food security and nutrition across the region.

“Hidden hunger,” or malnutrition that stems from eating too few micronutrient-rich foods like fruits and vegetables, is gaining widespread attention as a threat to global health. A working paper released by the CGIAR’s HarvestPlus program estimates that as many as 2 billion people worldwide are affected by micronutrient malnutrition.