COVID-19

As 2025 – the deadline for the Malabo Declaration commitments – approaches, African policymakers are taking stock of the region’s progress toward the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) framework for agriculture-led growth and development and determining what CAADP implementation will look like post-Malabo. The 2023 ReSAKSS Annual Trends and Outlook Report (ATOR) examines these questions, with a particular emphasis on the future of Africa’s food systems.

Nearly US$ 4 trillion: That is the amount of global crop and livestock production the FAO estimates has been lost over the past three decades due to disaster events. According to the new report, “The impact of disasters on agriculture and food security,” this equates to an average loss of US$123 billion per year and as much as 5 percent of annual global agricultural GDP.

Over the past two years, the impacts of ongoing regional conflicts, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian-Ukraine war have drastically weakened the world’s already inadequate, unsustainable food systems. This confluence of factors has induced in supply chain disruptions and high and volatile prices for food, fertilizer, and fuel, and the result has been the third global food crisis in less than two decades.

Food systems around the world have experienced numerous shocks in the past two years, and African food systems are no exception. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, global and local supply chain disruptions, climate change, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have placed enormous pressure on food and nutrition security in the region, threatening the likelihood that Africa will achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.