Food and nutrition security remain Africa's most fundamental challenges for human welfare and economic growth. Far too many people on the continent are unable to acquire and effectively utilize at all times the food they need for a healthy life. Because of low food availability and profound poverty, an estimated 200 million people on the continent are undernourished, and their numbers have increased by almost 20 percent since the early 1990s. The result is that more than a third of African children are stunted in their growth and must face a range of physical and cognitive challenges not faced by their better-fed peers. Undernutrition is the major risk factor underlying over 28 percent of all deaths in Africa (some 2.9 million deaths annually). The continuing human costs of inadequate food and nutrition are enormous, and the aggregate costs of food and nutrition insecurity at the national level impose a heavy burden on efforts to foster sustained economic growth and improved general welfare.

To be successful, new and innovative initiatives against poverty in Africa must sharply reduce hunger and malnutrition. The logic is as follows: Broad-based economic growth is necessary to increase incomes and consumption to reduce poverty. Economic growth can be achieved primarily through enhanced economic productivity, which in turn comes about through broad improvements in the intellectual and technical capacity of the population. The potential intellectual and technical capacity of the population is dependent on improved nutrition, particularly for young children and women in their childbearing years. Similarly, the effective utilization of such capacity is dependent on a properly nourished population, in which individuals are living healthy and active lives and are able to contribute creatively to their own and the nation's economic well-being. It is only when Africans have secured their basic food and nutritional needs that they will begin to experience sustained improvements in their broader welfare.

A household is food secure if it can reliably gain access to food in sufficient quantity and quality for all household members to enjoy a healthy and active life. It is possible, however, for individuals in food-secure households to have deficient or unbalanced diets. Nutrition security is achieved when secure access to food is coupled with a sanitary environment, adequate health services, and knowledgeable care to ensure a healthy and active life for all household members. The ability of an individual to fully reach his or her personal and economic potential, however defined, must depend to a large degree on his or her level of nutrition security. Moreover, the availability of nutrition resources and the degree to which an individual has access to such resources are a function of how society is organized in terms of economic structure, political and ideological expectations, and its institutions. Consequently, nutrition security must be a subject for political debate and an issue of immediate concern to any national development strategies.

What then is the level of access to the components of food and nutrition security that most Africans enjoy? For all Africans, such security is closely tied to agricultural productivity. Higher production from one's own farm or herds enhances household food security. For food purchasers, higher production generally means lower food prices and access to a greater quantity of food in the market for a given income level. Many countries, however, particularly in Eastern and Central Africa, possess a combination of a moribund food crop sector and very low purchasing power. Stable access to food through the market requires that the food marketing system is effective in supplying food while also providing benefit to those who have food to sell. In most parts of Africa, the marketing system is not effective in this regard. People living on less than one dollar per day are unable to pay the prices they would need to pay to import all of the staple food they require.

In consequence, undernutrition in its various forms is primarily a chronic condition in Africa. Food crises emerge when broad negative shocks--drought, floods, economic downturns, conflict--affect chronically food-insecure populations. However, while not to discount the severity of acute hunger crises facing 30 to 40 million Africans annually, there are 160 million persons in Africa who are undernourished. Although they may not necessarily be facing an acute crisis in access to food, their access is not secure. If any of the 160 million were to be affected by one of these broad shocks or a range of other more individual shocks--death in the household, loss of an income source, chronic illness--most would face an acute hunger crisis relatively quickly. Because of this vulnerability, food aid and social safety net institutions remain an important component of the food security for many Africans.

Moreover, nutrition security requires several factors that are complementary to food security. Among these are a hygienic environment and access to health services. In these areas, the challenges are great, and important advances in nutrition security remain to be achieved through continued and increasing investment in these areas. There is also considerable evidence that the nutritional status of children varies directly with the educational level of their parents, and in particular their mothers. Mothers with more education are more knowledgeable about the care they need to provide their children. Although it is not an obvious element of strategies to enhance nutrition security, ensuring that girls are able to attain their full educational potential is a critical and currently deficient component of such efforts in Africa.

In a survey of the continent, the countries of North Africa are clearly among the most secure nutritionally. These countries are among the wealthiest in Africa, a fact that has implications for access to food through the market and for the basic requirements of good nutritional status. In contrast, those countries that are least nutritionally secure are not surprising. Those nations in Africa that have experienced conflict and the absence of an effective central government in recent years do not have in place the conditions that might assure broad nutrition security. Conflict exacerbates poverty and poor governance. These governments are unable to provide basic public goods, which results in a consequent lack of access to food, care, health services, and a healthy environment.

The more interesting and challenging cases are the broad range of countries that exhibit poor to fair progress in assuring the nutrition security of their citizens--countries where the majority of Africans live. Assessing what such nations might do differently to significantly improve nutrition security can only be done on a case-by-case basis. Where food availability is poor, food production must be enhanced at the same time as trade policies are reexamined to allow a more reliable supply of food from the global market. Other countries may be food secure but still have crippling rates of malnutrition. In these, attention should be directed to issues of household access to food and to the context within which the food is utilized--sanitation, health services, level of knowledgeable care, and a broad range of related issues. Moreover, the quality of policymaking and the effective and responsible implementation of those policies are important basic determinants of the degree to which food and nutrition security can be assured in any country in Africa.

Responsibility for assuring that individuals are able to attain food security ultimately lies with national governments. They have a duty to establish the conditions and institutions necessary to enable citizens to access the basic requirements of nutrition security--sufficient quantities of food necessary for a balanced diet; the means to acquire this food, whether through cash incomes or access to productive resources; education in order to provide proper nutritional care to one's dependents and oneself; clean water and adequate sanitation; and effective health services. It should not be expected that one detailed policy and action prescription will enable national governments to effectively address malnutrition in all countries. Because of historical factors, agroecological conditions, economic comparative advantage, or institutional structures, the basic determinants of food and nutrition security in any one African country will never be exactly the same as those of another. That said, there really are no exceptions--all African countries can attain nutrition security. What is needed is commitment to this goal; dedicated efforts to marshal the human, institutional, and material resources necessary for the task; followed by the application of the political will to undertake the actions necessary to achieve it.

National governments must lead several aspects of the effort to attain nutrition security, highlighted here:

• Sustained and broad-based economic growth is necessary. To end hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, it is estimated that the region must attain a 3.5 percent annual average growth rate in per capita gross domestic product (GDP). In the past decade, however, only half a dozen countries had growth rates above 2.5 percent. The challenge is immense.
• Efforts must be made to open national markets to international trade, both within Africa and globally. National food availability should not necessarily or even primarily be dependent upon national food production alone. The nutrition security of the population of a country is enhanced to the degree that the nation invests in building the necessary institutional and legal frameworks and physical infrastructure to facilitate open, reciprocal trade, both with neighboring countries and with the globe as a whole.
• Agriculture cannot be ignored. The effectiveness of farmers in producing food is a critical factor in the level of access to food enjoyed by the farmers themselves and the much broader population with whom they are linked through the market. Growth in food supplies has the dual effect of increasing the income of the farming household and reducing the prices households must pay to acquire food in the marketplace, both of which enhance nutrition security. Moreover, increased production of food and nonfood crops provides an important input into the broader economy, both in rural areas and in urban manufacturing centers.
• Education is a critical input to good nutritional status, particularly for girls.
• Direct nutrition interventions are a necessary component of any effort to build the quality of human capital for economic growth and improved standards of living.
• A close link exists between successful improvements in child nutrition and increasing women's social access to resources they can use to improve care and increase the diversity and quantity of food provided the children under their care. Consequently, improving the level of equity between men and women is good for nutrition security.
• Locally conceived and implemented action has been shown to be the most effective way to improve food and nutrition security. Central government's role should consist of giving broad direction to local efforts and facilitating those efforts through resource allocation, provision of needed expertise, and institutional support.
• Budgetary allocations by central governments should reflect the central importance that food and nutrition security has for the welfare of all people and the immense economic benefits it provides for relatively little cost. In this regard, donor funding should be viewed as a secondary resource to complement government's own.
• Without dedicated advocacy to inform policy makers at all levels of the critical role improved nutrition plays in development and poverty alleviation, it is unlikely that emerging democratic, decentralized, bottom-up political systems across Africa will allow the voices of the malnourished to be any better heard in planning and resource allocation decisions. The issue must be communicated effectively and understood widely, its significance for the welfare of all members of society recognized, and action catalyzed around proposed solutions. Ultimately, advocacy seeks to ensure that the political will is established so that the necessary resources are provided to aid individuals and households in attaining food and nutrition security.

Responsibility for assuring food and nutrition security must ultimately lie with national governments. Consequently, the master development plans of government should reflect the importance of such security to the welfare of its citizens. Thus it is critical that the poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) that many African nations have developed in the past five years and that serve as master development plans for many are explicit on the importance of investing in food and nutrition security to reduce poverty and generate sustained economic growth. Similarly, sectoral plans and strategies, most notably agricultural sector strategies, should be oriented toward food and nutrition security objectives, along with their other longstanding objectives. Advocates for full food and nutrition security must engage in the higher-level policy processes guiding the revisions of the PRSPs and sectoral strategy documents. The key message should be that the arrow of cause and effect between nutrition security and income and broader economic growth runs both ways. Just as income growth enhances nutrition security, healthy, active, well-nourished citizens are an important precondition for sustained growth in income. Nutrition and food security concerns must be among the primary components of such strategies.

It is at the local government level, however, that direct actions must be taken to facilitate improved access to nutrition security for individuals and households. Global and national policies are meaningless if they do not cascade into action at the local level that improves the nutrition security of individuals resident there in real, measurable ways. Policy processes, capacity, and resource allocations at the local level all pose important challenges that must be successfully addressed to enable local residents to attain food and nutrition security.

The costs of attaining food and nutrition security in Africa are high. The benefits of such security, however, can easily be shown to outweigh these costs. Moreover, there is a moral obligation to address hunger and nutrition insecurity. This being the case, it is important to recognize the power of political will and effective leadership to overcome such constraints. Where development issues such as food and nutrition security arise through broad, participatory policy processes, political will is built. When effective leadership is brought to bear on such issues, any resource voids that hamper action can be quickly filled.

Food and nutrition insecurity is a critical constraint to economic growth in Africa and an immediate cause of widespread suffering. Millions of Africans seek enhanced food and nutrition security. National governments and their development partners can do a great deal on many different scales to facilitate and ensure their citizens' access to the tools that will allow them to meet their food and nutrition requirements. The solutions are known. Now we must build the broad political will to address this issue and to foster the leadership necessary to effectively implement the solutions.

Table of Contents, Tables, Figures, Boxes, Acknowledgements, Forward

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Executive Summary

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Chapter 1: Introduction

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Chapter 2: Food and Nutrition Security

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Chapter 3: Food and Nutrition Security in Africa: Current Status and Trends

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Chapter 4: Action to Address Food and Nutrition Security

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Chapter 5: Advancing Food and Nutrition Security

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References

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2020 International Advisory Council and Recent 2020 Discussion Papers

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