Resilience

By: Swati Malhotra, IFPRI

As fall armyworm continues to spread across Africa, policymakers and development partners have increased their efforts to stop the pest’s reach and to mitigate its impact on the region’s agricultural production and food security.

As climate change continues to bring more frequent weather shocks, such as drought and flooding, and make rainfall patterns more erratic, smallholder farmers in developing regions like Africa south of the Sahara are often hardest hit. A new e-book from IRIN reports that mean temperatures in the region are expected to rise faster than the global average, leading to reduced agricultural yields and increased poverty and food insecurity.

The agricultural sector in Africa south of the Sahara has taken on an increasingly complex role in the region’s overall development, playing a major part in poverty reduction, food security, economic growth, climate change resilience, job creation, and improved nutrition. West Africa has experienced substantial economic growth in recent decades, with many countries slated to enter middle-income status by 2030, according to a new IFPRI Discussion Paper .

Vulnerability to poverty – the risk of falling into poverty in the future – remains a challenge in developing countries for researchers and policymakers alike. While reducing populations’ vulnerability to shocks that could drive them into poverty is clearly an important step in improving well-being, measuring and quantifying vulnerability is complex and is often further complicated by a lack of accurate data.