Decades of work to reduce hunger in Africa are being reversed as the continent struggles to cope with conflict, climate crisis and the global economic downturn, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned.
About 278 million people in Africa – approximately one-fifth of the total population – went hungry in 2021, an increase of 50 million people since 2019, according to UN figures. Based on current trends, this is projected to rise to 310 million by 2030.
“Africa is moving backwards in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition,” Abebe Haile-Gabriel, an FAO assistant director general and its regional representative for Africa, told a conference in Addis Ababa on Monday.
Haile-Gabriel attributed the increase to “multiple and overlapping shocks and protracted crises in Africa” including the climate crisis, the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic, regional conflicts and the global surge in fuel prices amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said that most African countries lack the resilience and mechanisms to cope with these shocks, resulting in the livelihoods of millions of people being wiped out.
“This is not sustainable,” said Haile-Gabriel. “Unless we change course and learn how to do things differently and better, the situation will not go away or get any better.”
The Horn of Africa has been hit particularly hard by drought after four successive failed rainy seasons; a fifth consecutive rainy season is predicted to fail too. The international humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger said the deteriorating situation has led to “an explosion of needs” in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, where 36.1 million people in the three countries are affected by severe drought, up from 19 million in July.
In an interview last week, the UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said: “I have no doubt that we are seeing famine on our watch in Somalia and it is the first of, I fear, more to be announced in the Horn of Africa.”
Humanitarian appeals across the continent have gone underfunded, however. Francesco Rocca, the president of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told the conference that the current situation in Somalia reminded him of the lead-up to the 2011 famine, which killed a quarter of a million people.
Rocca warned that “millions” could die of hunger in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region if donors do not scale up the humanitarian response, and he described the failure to respond quickly as “morally unacceptable”.
Josefa Sacko, the African Union commissioner for agriculture, said Africa must become self-sufficient in food production in order to better insulate itself against external crises.
Africa sourced 44% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine before the conflict broke out and was hit hard by the disruption to global supply chains caused by the Covid pandemic.
“We must build a sustainable, resilient food system that can withstand future shocks,” Sacko said, adding that short- and medium-term financial support should be geared towards this goal.