BY MEHARI BEYENE
Africa, particularly, sub-Sahara, is not on track towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 2 targets to end hunger and ensure access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food and to end all forms of malnutrition through utilizing modern technological tools as well, so disclosed United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
The number of hungry people on the continent has risen by 47.9 million since 2014 and now stands at 250.3 million, or nearly one-fifth of the population. Of these, 15.6 million people are in Northern Africa and 234.7 million in sub-Saharan Africa. Gradual deterioration of food security was due to conflict, weather extremes, and economic slowdowns and downturns, often overlapping. These shocks frequently affect populations already facing chronic poverty and limited social protection coverage and are exacerbated by policies that do not support equitable growth or poverty reduction.
A continued worsening of food security is also expected for 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated containment measures are causing a devastating social and economic crisis in many countries, with the consequences expected to last many years. In addition to hunger, across all countries in Africa millions of people suffer from widespread micronutrient deficiencies, and in many of these countries overweight and obesity are also emerging as significant health concerns.
Overall progress in reducing malnutrition, as measured against the World Health Assembly and sustainable development goals 2030 global nutrition targets, remains unacceptably slow in Africa. At the country level, progress has been mixed, but mostly mediocre. Only three countries, Eswatini, Kenya and Sao Tome and Principe, are on course to meeting four of the five targets that are measured. Three other countries, Ghana, Lesotho and Rwanda, are on track to meeting three targets. Progress is weakest for stunting and wasting in children under five and for anemia in women of reproductive age.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where the number of stunted children continues to rise. Although the prevalence of stunting is declining, it is falling only very slowly. Despite progress, nearly a third of the children in sub-Saharan Africa are stunted. Today, 40 percent of all stunted children in the world live in Africa, a significant rise from the 18 percent observed in 1990. Progress towards meeting the targets in exclusive breastfeeding and reducing overweight in children is slightly better.
Ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people all year round, and eradicating all forms of malnutrition, will only be possible if we ensure that people are nourished with quality diets that address all forms of malnutrition. However, of all the challenges to achieving this, the cost of food and the affordability of diets are among the most important, particularly in the case of nutritious food that makes the healthiest diets. Nearly 430 million Africans live in extreme poverty and many more work in low-productivity, low wage sectors, in addition to which Africans face some of the highest food costs when compared to other regions of a similar level of development.
Furthermore, nutritious foods, such as fruits and vegetables and animal-source foods, are relatively expensive when compared to staples such as cereals and starchy roots, and some of the reasons for this are systemic. The food system in Africa does not provide food at a cost that makes healthy diets affordable to the majority of the population, and this is reflected in the high disease burden associated with maternal and child malnutrition, high body-mass, micronutrient deficiencies and dietary risk factors.
New evidence, first presented in the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020, shows that “healthy” and “nutrient adequate” diets are considerably more expensive than “energy sufficient” diets. Across all income groups, the “nutrient adequate”, and “healthy” diet are three to over five times more expensive than the “energy sufficient” diet, respectively. Nearly three-quarters of the African population cannot afford a “healthy” diet, and more than half cannot afford a “nutrient adequate” diet. Even the “energy sufficient” diet is out of reach for 11.3 percent of the continent’s population. Moreover, in low-income African countries the cost of the “energy sufficient” diet amounts to 41 percent of average household food expenditures.
For the majority of Africans to gain access to healthy diets, nutritious food must become considerably more affordable. The situation is particularly dire for the nearly 430 million Africans living in extreme poverty who need about half of their food budget just to purchase the “energy sufficient” diet. Poverty lines reflect basic needs, including food, but they do not provide for having a nutrient adequate or healthy diet in most countries. It may therefore be important to revise national poverty lines upwards to ensure food security and nutrition.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 report also shows that current food consumption patterns impose high health and environmental costs, which are not reflected in food prices. Including these costs would add 0.35 USD to each dollar spent on food in sub-Saharan Africa. Rebalancing diets towards a higher content of plant-based foods would not only reduce the cost of diets but also lower the health and environmental costs. Compared to current average diets, rebalancing diets in such a way would reduce the full cost of diets by 11–21 percent in low-income countries.
The findings presented in the 2020 Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition highlight the importance of prioritizing the transformation of food systems to ensure access to affordable and healthy diets for all, produced in a sustainable manner. A common vision, strong political leadership and effective cross-sectoral collaboration, including the private sector, are essential to agree on trade-offs and identify and implement sustainable solutions to transform food systems for healthy, affordable diets. Policies and interventions throughout the food system will be needed to raise yields, lower costs, and promote nutritious foods, and to reduce health and environmental costs.
Within the African context, essential interventions are increased investment in research and extension to improve yields, especially of nutritious foods, and in efforts to diffuse the adoption of modern technologies. Production must be intensified in a sustainable manner, and interventions to improve land governance, empower women to reduce the gender gap, reduce post-harvest losses and lower transaction costs by investing in road networks, transportation and market infrastructure are essential.
In addition, complementary interventions that are nutrition-specific or sensitive, such as micronutrient fortification of staple foods, better food safety, improved maternal and child nutrition and care, nutrition education and healthier food environments, are needed. Finally, government policy must promote access to nutritious food through social protection, poverty reduction and income inequality solutions.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD JULY 16/2021
