Hunger in Africa: problems and solutions

Since well before COVID-19, several major drivers have knocked the world off track in its efforts to end hunger by 2030. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ latest report on food security highlights the need for deeper reflection on how to better address the causes of food insecurity.

World hunger increased in 2020 under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. After remaining virtually unchanged for five years, the prevalence of undernourishment rose from 8,4% to around 9,9% in just one year. Between 720 million and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020. Hunger affects 21% of the population in Africa, compared with 9% percent in Asia; one-third of the world’s undernourished are found in Africa (282 million people). In Southern Africa, severe food insecurity increased from 19,2% to 22,7%.

While the pandemic was a contributing factor, changes observed from 2019 to 2020 point to many other factors at play. These include:

• Conflict Conflict in Africa is cross-border and regional in nature. It’s also becoming more complex, protracted and intractable, and involving large outflows of refugees and external international actors. Sometimes the factors that lead to a conflict may not disappear when the conflict is seemingly over; what’s more, conflicts can take on a cyclical nature if underlying causes are not addressed.

• Climate extremes Countries face increasing climate variability and more frequent climate extremes, linked in part to climate change. The occurrence of three or more types of climate extremes has increased from 10% in 2000 to 2004 to 49% in 2015 to 2020 for countries in Africa.