Webinar hosted by the Food Security Portal with support by the Harvest Consortium

Date: October 31, 2019 at 11:00AM EST

Background

This post originally appeared on IFPRI.org .

By Claudia Ringler and Turhan Saleh

Extreme weather events and other climate change-linked disasters have devastated communities globally: Be it cyclones along the coast of Southern Africa, flooding in parts of Canada, drought-induced wildfires in California, or the recent El Niño (ENSO) induced drought in Eastern and Southern Africa that affected 60 million people.

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.

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.

The 2015-2016 El Niño cycle has had devastating effects in many developing regions, including across much of Africa south of the Sahara. According to a new report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, El Niño has affected 60 million people worldwide, and 23 countries have issued response plans costing upwards of US$ 5 billion in national funding and international aid.