Agriculture

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the midstream of agrifood value chains—wholesalers, logistics, and processors—play a critical role to food security and value chain transformation. These enterprises help keep food supplies affordable and stable, provide employment and income for millions of rural and urban workers, and improve food quality and safety for consumers. However, in South Asia, Africa south of the Sahara (SSA), and other developing regions, SMEs often don’t play a role in the food system transformation conversation.

Africa’s trajectory to emergence and self-sufficiency has seen significant  progress in achieving global and continental milestones such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Malabo Declaration. However, food security and improved nutrition remain a challenge, and current trends suggest that the continent is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger (SDG 2) by 2030. Evidence suggests that one in five people faced hunger in Africa in 2020 – more than double the proportion of any other region.

Our window of opportunity for achieving SDG 2 — eradicating hunger and malnutrition and ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all by 2030 — is closing rapidly. However, far from moving closer to that goal, the world has seen a resurgence of hunger and food insecurity.

At an online event on January 19, 2021, researchers from national research institutes and universities in the Sahel region and Germany, namely the Agrhymet Regional Centre of the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) in Niger and the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn (ZEF) in Germany launched a series of national cases studies*) and a regional synthesis report on rural development, agricultural livelihoods and job creation in the Sahel region.

Food security has been a significant concern for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), even before the onslaught of challenges brought about by COVID-19. As the pandemic started spreading to the region, one concern has been that of its possible impacts on food security, as the crisis has the potential to exacerbate an already fragile food security environment.