Nutrition

While global hunger has fallen significantly since 2000, hunger levels in Africa south of the Sahara remain high – they are, in fact, the highest in the world. This is the finding of the 2016 Global Hunger Index , released today by IFPRI, Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe.

The April 2016 meeting of the CAADP Partnership Platform called for renewed efforts to meet the 2003 Maputo commitment to invest at least 10% of public budgets in agriculture, as reiterated in the 2014 Malabo Declaration.  Mainstreaming nutrition in the National Agricultural Investment Strategies has been a goal for regional planners but a number of knowledge gaps still exist.   Research has shown that CAADP has been successful in improving the effectiveness and transparency of agricultural policy-making in Africa, increasing the political cachet of the agricultural secto

In 2003, the member countries of the African Union launched a new initiative aimed at increasing food security and reducing poverty through the growth and development of the region’s agricultural sector. The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program , or CAADP, set a target of 6 percent annual average growth in the agricultural sector, as well as the allocation of 10 percent of total annual government expenditures to the sector.

IFPRI’s “Stories of Change in Nutrition” series of publications examines evidence from countries with high burdens of malnutrition in order to better understand how nutrition policies are made and how these policies are implemented on the ground. In Africa south of the Sahara, the series thus far covers Ethiopia , Zambia , and Senegal .

In recent years, a combination of increased food prices, slowing agricultural growth, and a rapidly rising population have put pressure on Nigeria’s domestic food security. According to IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP), the average share of income spent on food within the country rose from 45 percent in 2007 to 80 percent in 2008 as a result of the global spike in food prices.