The food insecurity situation in Africa is reaching crisis levels, as measured by absolute food insecurity figures, and the prospects of achieving the Malabo Declaration of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme by next year and Goal 2 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to end global hunger, by 2030 are dim.
According to the 2023 Joint Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Africa, produced by the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the number of food insecure Africans has increased by 57 million to 282 million, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This development, at the individual level, leads to risks of undernourishment and hunger. It can also lead to deaths as well as social and political tensions.
This situation is due to several factors. The disruption of global food and fertilizer supply chains caused by the situation in Ukraine has led to higher inflation in many countries. In Africa, food represents a significant share of income for many Africans. This means that inflation immediately translates into a reduction in financial capacity to meet daily food needs.
Climate change has also contributed to food insecurity by generating floods, droughts, heat waves, poor water quality and low levels of agricultural productivity. These factors have in turn led to a decline in agricultural production. The alternative would be to import food, which not only addresses the challenge of global supply chain disruptions discussed above.
The debt situation has also contributed to food insecurity in Africa. For example, measures taken by creditor countries to reduce inflation by increasing interest rates have resulted in increased debt servicing costs for debtor countries as well as currency depreciation. As a result, inflation has continued to rise in debtor countries. Raising taxes to meet debt payments and repayments has, in debtor countries, as we see in some African countries, social and political limitations. Social and political tensions are turning into riots and loss of life which, if left unchecked, can jeopardize peace, stability and governance.
I would now like to turn to the issue of food security. Achieving food security simply requires increasing agricultural productivity in Africa, while respecting the environment. The African Development Bank and the African Export-Import Bank have both established financing mechanisms to promote the development of agro-industrial zones and national and regional agricultural parks, with the aim of ensuring food security in Africa, promoting intra-African trade in agricultural products and increasing rural incomes.
The program in Ethiopia is already yielding positive results, as evidenced by the fact that the country is no longer dependent on wheat imports to meet its domestic consumption. Ethiopia is now increasing its wheat production for export to other African countries. The regional agro-park programs, which started with pilot projects involving Zambia and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in West Africa, are also designed to promote specialization as part of the process of facilitating intra-African trade in agricultural products. In addition, they are designed to have an ecosystem of financing, input supply, production, storage and ultimately marketing.
Adding to the ecosystem is the need for increased investment in sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards across Africa. These standards are critical to addressing the challenges of, among others, the spread of pests in the era of climate change and high mobility. By investing in SPS standards, we would ensure food security as well as animal and plant health and, invariably, higher levels of agricultural productivity, food security and rural incomes.
Given that financing will be a key element in increasing agricultural productivity in Africa to ensure food security at the individual level, I am sure that the Africa-Arab Trade Bridges Programme can influence how to join forces with the African Development Bank and the African Export-Import Bank to create agro-industrial zones and agro-parks across Africa.
I would like to stress the importance of promoting rural development in Africa to foster food security and sustainable livelihoods. This will be sustainable if we increase rural incomes and could even lead to situations where urban dwellers decide to retire to rural areas without compromising the quality of life they had in urban areas during their working lives. One of the levers to achieve this is the development of cooperatives throughout Africa, with the capacity for year-round agricultural production, agro-processing activity in rural areas and direct export to international markets. Through such strategic positioning, cooperatives would add value at source and therefore increase members’ incomes in rural areas.
In this regard, we have approached the United Nations Industrial Development Organization to collaborate with us in the development of primary agricultural, agro-processing and retail cooperatives across Africa, in order to increase agricultural productivity, promote rural industrialization, increase rural incomes and ensure food security.
By Albert Muchanga
The author is African Union Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals.
