What's New

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) - including mobile phones, audio-visual communication, digital technologies, and internet services - have played a significant role in development in Africa south of the Sahara over the past decade. The potential benefits of ICTs for the region’s agricultural sector, and its poor farming households, are especially important, as Africa south of the Sahara has the lowest rates of agricultural productivity and the highest rates of hunger in the world.

According to a new technical report from IFPRI’s Malawi Strategy Support Program (MSSP), despite the fact that Malawi has exceeded the 10 percent agricultural investment goal set forth by the CAADP, the country’s agricultural productivity has remained stagnant in recent years and food insecurity and undernutrition remain rampant.

Efforts to increase rural incomes and reduce rural poverty in developing countries often focus on policies to lower transport costs and increase market access among poor and remote rural populations. Despite the growing importance of such policies, however, it is not entirely clear to what extent and through which channels increased market access impacts rural individuals’ and households’ nutrition outcomes and overall wellbeing. A recent paper published in World Development seeks to answer these questions in the context of rural Ethiopia.

FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) has recently released several new country briefs for the Africa South of the Sahara Food Security Portal’s prioritized countries. The country brief series provides information regarding countries’ current agricultural season and harvest prospects for main staple food crops, as well as estimates and forecasts of cereal production, cereal imports, and food prices and policy developments. This latest round of updates includes new information for Senegal , South Sudan , Nigeria , and Zambia .

Africa south of the Sahara currently faces a range of shocks - from civil conflict to increasing incidence of transboundary plant and animal pests and diseases to climate-related shocks stemming from both climate change and recent El Niño and La Niña weather phenomena. According to the most recent edition of FAO’s “Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Africa” , taken together, these shocks pose a threat to recent progress made in the region to attain food and nutrition security.