AFRICA Regional overview of food security and nutrition 2021: Statistics and trends

1.1 Prevalence of undernourishment

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s (FAO) prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) indicator is derived from official country data on food supply, food consumption and energy needs, while taking into consideration demographic characteristics such as age, sex and levels of physical activity. Designed to capture a state of energy deprivation lasting over a year, it does not reflect the short-lived effects of temporary crises or a temporarily inadequate intake of essential nutrients.

FAO strives always to improve the accuracy of the PoU estimates by taking into account new information; the entire historical series is updated for each report. For this reason, only the current series of estimates should be used, including for values in past years.^{1 1} FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO. 2019. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019. Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns. Rome, FAO.

Hunger in Africa, as measured by the PoU, has worsened significantly since 2014 (Figure 1). In 2020, 21 percent of the population was undernourished, a rise of 4.3 percentage points since 2014. About 70 percent of the increase in the PoU between 2014 and 2020 occurred in the period from 2019 to 2020.

The continent is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 targets to end hunger and ensure access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round and to end all forms of malnutrition. In part this is due to poverty and inequality, and to the underlying structural causes that amplify the main drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition such as conflict, climate variability and extremes, economic slowdowns and downturns and the unaffordability of a healthy diet. The past four editions of the Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition covered these drivers in detail.² In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by many countries to contain it added to the already existing challenges, further undermining efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the region.^{3 2} For conflict see: FAO. 2017. Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Africa 2017. The food security and nutrition–conflict nexus: building resilience for food security, nutrition and peace. Accra (http://www.fao.org/3/i7967e/i7967e.pdf). For climate extremes and variability see: FAO & ECA. 2018. Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition. Addressing the threat from climate variability and extremes for food security and nutrition. Accra (http://www.fao.org/3/ca2710en/CA2710EN.pdf). For economic slowdowns and downturns see: FAO, ECA & AUC. 2020. Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2019. Containing the damage of economic slowdowns and downturns to food insecurity in Africa. Rome (http://www.fao.org/3/ca7343en/ca7343en.pdf). For unaffordability of healthy diets, see: FAO, ECA & AUC. 2021. Africa regional overview of food security and nutrition 2020: Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets. Accra, FAO (http://www.fao.org/3/cb4831en/cb4831en.pdf). ³ For a more detailed exposition on the impact of COVID-19 on hunger and malnutrition see: FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO. 2021. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all. Rome, FAO (http://www.fao.org/3/cb4474en/cb4474en.pdf). Also see: FAO. 2021. Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agriculture, food security and nutrition in Africa. Accra, FAO.

The prevalence of undernourishment is highest in Central Africa (31.8 percent) and Eastern Africa (28.1 percent), but the deterioration since 2014 has been fastest in Western Africa, where the PoU rose by 7.1 percentage points (Figure 2 and Table 1).

In 2020, 281.6 million Africans were undernourished, an increase of 89.1 million since 2014 (Figure 3 and Table 2). Of the total number of undernourished, 125.1 million people live in Eastern Africa, followed by Western Africa (75.2 million), Central Africa (57.1 million), Northern Africa (17.4 million) and Southern Africa (6.8 million). Africa accounts for 55 percent of the global rise in the number of undernourished over the 2014 to 2020 period. In addition, Eastern and Western Africa account for 83 percent of the Africa-wide increase over the 2014 to 2020 period.

Tables 1 and 2 and Figure 3 show a wide variation in the PoU and the number of undernourished at the subregional level, and this is also true at the country level (Figure 4). In addition, the changes in the PoU over time also vary, with most, but not all countries, registering a higher PoU for the 2018–2020 average, compared to 2013–2015.^{4 4} Country-level estimates are reported as three-year moving averages, to control for the low reliability of some of the underlying parameters. Regional and global aggregates, on the other hand, are reported as annual estimates, as possible estimation errors are expected not to be correlated across countries. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP & WHO. 2021. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all. Rome, FAO. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb4474en

As already mentioned, the situation and trends in the PoU are determined by a number of key and often overlapping drivers, including conflict, climate variability and extremes, and economic slowdowns and downturns. The situation is often exacerbated by difficult underlying conditions, such as poverty and inequality, and, in some cases, inappropriate policies. However, it is difficult to ascribe precisely the degree of impact by driver.

In many countries, including Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, the Niger, Nigeria and Somalia, conflict, by destroying livelihoods and displacing thousands of people, was a key contributor to food insecurity. In some countries, including Madagascar and Mozambique, adverse weather conditions were the key driver of food insecurity.

In Eastern and Southern Africa, many countries suffer regularly from arid or drought conditions. For example, in 2015/2016, El-Niño-related drought conditions affected many parts of Southern and Eastern Africa, leaving millions of people in need of urgent food assistance. Cyclone Idai, which hit Southern African countries in 2019, especially Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, exacerbated the already precarious food security situation.

In addition, economic slowdowns and downturns regularly affect many African countries, most of which are highly dependent on oil and other commodity exports for generating foreign exchange and tax revenue. Falling demand and prices for commodities negatively affected many countries and worsened food security between 2014 and 2016, with oil exporting countries worst affected.

More recently, the different national and global measures undertaken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted economic and livelihood activities in service sectors such as tourism, remittances, commodity exports, markets and commodity value chains. Real gross domestic product in Africa fell by 2.1 percent in 2020, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^{5 5} African Development Bank. 2021. African Economic Outlook 2021. From Debt Resolution to Growth: The Road Ahead for Africa. Abidjan, African Development Bank.

Quantifying the full impact of COVID-19 on food security is not yet possible. The economic downturn associated with COVID-19 containment measures has led to lower incomes while food prices, as measured by the FAO Food Price Index, has been rising since June 2020.⁶ Falling incomes and rising prices may not necessarily lower the intake of overall calories, but they may force households to switch to lower cost, less nutritious food, thus lowering the quality of the diet. In addition, households may reduce spending on health and education. The worsening food security situation is reflected in the PoU data as well as the prevalence of moderate or severe food security in the population figures presented below. ⁶ See FAO. 2021. FAO price data and analysis. In: FAO Prices. Rome. Cited 15 October 2021. http://www.fao.org/prices/en/