Food Security

FEWS Net has released a special report with a series of maps illustrating the extent and severity of the ongoing drought in southern Africa. The drought, driven by the 2015-16 El Niño cycle, has limited crop production throughout the region, worsening food insecurity during the lean season and making it likely that food insecurity will continue throughout the remainder of the year.

In 1961, annual milled rice production in Africa south of the Sahara was 2.8 million tons; this number reached an estimated 16.6 million tons in 2011. [1] Despite this increase, however, demand for rice in the region has outpaced local production, leading SSA to import more rice; according to a journal article in Agriculture and Food Security , the share of imports in SSA’s overall rice consumption reached 43 percent in 2009. This trend has caused policymakers and experts throughout the region to attempt to strengthen the domestic rice sector.

Reducing stunting and wasting in children under five years of age and improving children’s micronutrient status have become widely recognized as important development goals. Undernutrition in the first few years of life can have significant long-term effects, including fewer years of schooling, lower cognitive skills, and even lower income in adulthood.

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?