Most poverty-struck rural households in Africa spend between 57 and 59 per cent of their income on food
Africa’s economic growth has been crippled by the combined effects of skyrocketing inflation, Ukraine war, massive debts and climate change, according to the World Bank.
This will have long-lasting consequences, possibly reversing decades of progress in poverty alleviation, warned the report published in october this year.
Food and fuel inflation is exacerbating food insecurity, especially among the vulnerable in the continent.
This might have spiked the already on-the-rise headline inflation in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank highlighted in its latest biannual analysis Africa’s Pulse.
Headline inflation is a measure of the total inflation within an economy. It takes the prices of volatile commodities such as food and fuel into account.
Also read: High water stress to displace up to 700 million Africans by 2030
Ukraine war, in the backdrop of an economy recovering from post-pandemic ailments, has aggravated the situation. Some 29 of 33 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had inflation rates over 5 per cent. While, 17 countries had double-digit inflation as of July 2022.
This comes at a time when debt in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to stay at 58.6 per cent of GDP in 2022. Eight out of 38 countries eligible for International Development Association’s (IDA) support in the region are in debt distress and 14 are at high risk.
Eligibility for IDA’s support depends on a country’s relative poverty.
The projected inflation trends could slow down the already hampered efforts to reduce poverty. This can impact Africa’s progress in reaching the United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals for ending extreme poverty by 2030.
Also read: Climate shocks to drive 13.5 million people in Africa’s Sahel into poverty by 2050
Food inflation is a threat to long-term human development in the continent, the report read.
Record high international food and fuel prices — especially during the first quarter of 2022 — triggered a global crisis. It can lead to an increase in extreme poverty, worsening hunger and malnutrition, warned the report.
Elevated food prices are detrimental as a vast majority of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa allocates over 40 per cent of total spending to food.
Most poverty-struck rural households spend between 57 and 59 per cent of their income on food.
More than one in five people in Africa suffer from hunger. An estimated 140 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2022, compared to 120 million people in 2021, according to the Global Report on Food Crises.
Food insecurity increased by 17 per cent between 2021 and 2022, the report added.
In East Africa alone, an estimated 55 million people is acutely food insecure — up from 41 million in 2021. This implies a 34 per cent increase in food insecure people.
Food security crises are becoming more frequent and more acute in the subcontinent, flagged the World Bank.
In east and southern Africa, severe food crisis episodes occurred every 2.5 years in the 2000s, as opposed to one in every decade previously. Food security is estimated to decline by 5-20 per cent on average with each significant episode of flooding or drought.
The situation will deteriorate if no actions are implemented to reverse this trend. The prevalence of undernourishment may reach 29.4 per cent (411.8 million people) by 2030.
Some 209.3 million undernourished people will be from the west and central Africa, followed by east Africa with 191.6 million.
This calls for urgent action from policymakers to restore macro-economic stability and support the poorest households while reorienting their food and agriculture spending to achieve future resilience, said Andrew Dabalen, World Bank chief economist for Africa.
The report suggested short- and long-term measures to boost food and nutrition security. It called for strengthening food systems by improving the efficiency of existing resources.
Social safety initiatives like targeted cash or in-kind transfers during periods of heightened food insecurity can protect the most vulnerable people.
It suggested reorienting the government funds for nutrition-sensitive social protection programs, irrigation works, climate change adaptation and research and development.
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