What's New

By Samuel Benin and Ernesto Tiburcio

In 2003, African countries signed the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) and set the goal of investing 10% of their national budgets on the agricultural sector in pursuit of a 6% agricultural growth rate each year. Since then, it has become clear that the issue of what counts as agriculture expenditures is central in determining whether the numbers reported actually reflect improvements. An analysis of Ghana’s experience shows that an inconsistent approach can lead to misleading results.

Many areas of East Africa will continue to face high levels of food insecurity through late 2019, according to a new report from FEWS Net . The situation will hit its worst levels at the peak of the pastoral lean season in September and October.

According to a new report from FEWS Net , poor households in several regions of Southern Africa have exhausted their own produced foods earlier than usual in the season due to below-average harvests. The number of households in the region experiencing IPC Crisis (Phase 3) food insecurity is expected to increase with the start of the lean season in September and October.

By: Swati Malhotra, IFPRI

Southern Africa faced widespread drought from the October 2018 to March 2019 rainy season, with less than 55 percent of normal rainfall totals, alerts FEWS. The 2018-2019 rainfall began a month late, triggering extended dry spells between January and March. The historically low rainfall totals affected areas of Botswana, northern Zimbabwe, eastern Namibia, southern Angola, and the surplus producing areas of northern South Africa and southern Zambia, and registered a D3 (Extreme) or a D4 (Exceptional) drought as per the United States Drought Monitor classification scale.