Climate Change

Reducing food loss and waste (FLW) is crucial to improving food security, reducing malnutrition, and providing livelihoods for food system workers. But such efforts are also key to combating climate change. FLW has significant environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in both the production of food that is later lost and in waste management.

Climate change is transforming the global landscape, creating unprecedented challenges for developing countries. These challenges are particularly acute in regions where economies heavily depend on agriculture, such as sub-Saharan Africa, where climate impacts such as droughts and extreme weather are increasingly disrupting farming economies and food systems. One of the critical questions facing policymakers is how to best navigate these challenges to ensure sustainable development: Does the threat of climate change significantly undermine strategies focusing on agriculture?

Malawi continues to face a looming food crisis, according to the latest alerts from IPC and FEWS Net.  

Malnutrition—including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight, obesity, and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—poses a staggering challenge to health, food security, and economic growth outcomes around the world. In Ghana, an estimated 256.1 million people experienced hunger and 240 million were undernourished in 2018. At the same time, rates of obesity and diet-related NCDs in the country have risen significantly—from just 10 percent of Ghanaian adults in 1993 to 40 percent in 2015.

Food insecurity is escalating in West Africa and the Sahel region, according to the latest Regional Report on Food Security and Nutrition in West Africa and the Sahel (RRSAN) from the Food Security Information Network (FSIN). Between June and August 2024, as many as 50 million people across 16 countries could face CH Phase 3 (Crisis) or above food insecurity.