Over the past 40 years, per capita world food production grew by 25 percent. Although the world still faces a fundamental food security challenge, the amount of food grown per person has increased by 30 percent during that period. In Africa, however, the amount of food grown per person has decreased by 7 percent, and the number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa receiving food aid from the World Food Programme has doubled, from 21.2 million in 1995 to 40.1 million in 2004. The situation in Eastern and Central Africa is not any better. Chronic hunger affects 40 percent of the population even in normal years, and food aid covers 10 percent of calorie consumption. It is the only region in Africa where child malnutrition has increased over the past 2 decades.

Concerned over the grave worldwide situation of hunger and malnutrition, heads of states in 2000 pledged to reduce the proportion of hungry people by half by no later than 2015. This goal poses a particular challenge to the nations of Eastern and Central Africa.

ASARECA and IFPRI have collaborated to develop Strategic Priorities for Agricultural Development and Agricultural R&D in Eastern and Central Africa. Our evaluation indicates that no Eastern and Central African country will achieve the hunger MDG if they continue with business as usual: low levels of investment in agriculture leading to, low agricultural productivity growth rates, low agricultural GDP growth rates, and low overall GDP growth rates, all of which lead to high poverty, malnutrition, and mortality rates.

The IFPRI-ASARECA strategy recommends that the Eastern and Central African countries could meet the MDG if they conducted business in a different way: by putting in place investment packages that: promote agricultural productivity growth, giving highest priority to the sub-sectors for which demand is greatest within the region, promoting growth in nonagricultural rural sectors, and enhancing the functioning of agricultural markets. Without the concerted effort by all concerned, FAO notes that Africa could end up being worse off in terms of food security by 2015. Therefore, it will be useful to promote concerted efforts across all the initiatives, such as the Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Commission for Africa, and the UN Millennium Project, as well as across institutions such as Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), Sub-Regional Organizations, National Agricultural Research Systems, universities, the private sector, and civil society. These initiatives and organizations could work towards the achievement of the hunger MDG in Eastern and Central Africa through partnership, complementarity, additionality and subsidiarity. It will also be important to address institutional issues, and policy, environment, and science and technology strategy issues if we want to help Eastern and Central Africa, and Africa in general, achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Dr. Ketema is Executive Secretary of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA). He is a member of the ISNAR Program Advisory Committee and is a Member of the ICRAF and ICARDA Boards. Formerly, he was Minister for Agriculture in Ethiopia, Director General for the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization, and General Manager for the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and Research.