African States Urged to Transform Agrifood System to Avert Hunger, Malnutrition Crisis

Three regional agencies have urged African countries to transform the agri-food system to avert the deteriorating hunger and malnutrition crisis in the continent.

The African Union Commission, the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa and Food and Agriculture Organization, have launched an interactive digital report on Tuesday as the latest update to their annual reporting on the state of food security and nutrition in Africa.

According to the report, hunger and malnutrition crisis spurred by conflict, climate change and economic slow downs including those triggered by COVID-19 continues to worsen deteriorating from 2019.

In 2020, some 281.6 million Africans were undernourished, an increase of 89.1 million over 2014, the report shows.

About 44 percent of undernourished people on the continent live in Eastern Africa, 27 percent in Western Africa, 20 percent in Central Africa, 6.2 percent in Northern Africa, and 2.4 percent in Southern Africa.

To mitigate the worsening hangar and malnutrition, leaders of the three regional agencies have called for more action on agri-food systems transformation in the face of worsening hunger and malnutrition.

Noting that hunger has substantially worsened since 2013, the report said the crisis that mainly deteriorated in 2019 and 2020 is expected even to further deteriorate this year with no easing of hunger’s main drivers.

The three agencies behind the report are calling on African countries to heed the call for agri-food systems transformation to avert the crisis.

Short term measures to address the hunger challenge include countries providing humanitarian assistance and effective social protection measures and over the longer term, countries will need to invest in agriculture and related sectors, as well as in water, health, and education services, the report stated.

Source: Ethiopia News Agency