Food Security

Tanzania has made progress in reducing food insecurity in recent years; for example, according to the latest IFPRI Global Hunger Index , the percentage of children under five suffering from wasting fell from 7.9 percent in 1988-1992 to 3.8 percent in 2010-2014 and the percentage of children under five suffering from stunting fell from 49.7 percent to 34.7 percent in the same period. However, with 30 percent of the population suffering from some sort of food insecurity, it is clear that greater gains are still needed.

Over the past two decades, Africa’s overall GDP has doubled, and GDP per capita has grown by more than one-third. In Africa south of the Sahara, gross national income per capita increased from 1.3 percent in 1994-2004 to 2.3 percent in 2004-2014. Despite this impressive progress, however, it has still not been enough to lift millions of Africans out of poverty. What has driven this period of strong, rapid growth, and how can it be sustained and expanded in a long-term, inclusive way?

Food and nutrition security (FNS) is a multi-dimensional concept, spanning the agriculture, trade, health, and social sectors. Often, however, policies only address FNS through one lens: that of food production. This could be due to the fact that many FNS stakeholders have a background in agriculture and thus tend to focus on sectoral agricultural issues, says a new report from the FoodSecure project .

This blog post originally appeared on the Bioversity International blog . It details one of many nutrition-related projects being conducted by CG centers under the Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) program.

A 3-year research-for-development initiative in the Barotse floodplain, Zambia, supported by the CGIAR research programs Aquatic Agricultural Systems and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, brought scientists and community members together to improve food and nutrition security all year round.

In recent years, export bans on staple crops have become more and more common as countries attempt to safeguard their domestic food supplies and protect their populations from international food price spikes. Research has shown, however, that such policies often do more harm than good, reducing the prices that local producers receive for their goods and increasing uncertainty in the market for both farmers and traders.