The World Bank Group (WBG) has expressed concern about the number of people facing severe food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa has increasing sharply, with more than one in five people facing hunger and more than a quarter billion people undernourished.
In its Africa Pulse report released in Washington DC towards the end of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank/IMF, WBG said food security crises are becoming more acute and frequent.
About 140 million people are estimated to be acutely food insecure in the Sub Saharan region in 2022, up from 120 million in 2021.
“In East Africa alone, an estimated 55 million people will be acutely food insecure in 2022—up from 41 million in 2021. In AFE, severe food crisis episodes are taking place every 2.5 years in the 2000s, as opposed to one every decade previously,” WBG said.
Currently there are many people who are food insecure in Uganda, with the Karamoja sub region most hunger hit.
Africa’s Pulse is a biannual analysis of the near-term macroeconomic outlook for the region, published around the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual meetings each April and October.
In the Africa Pulse, the World Bank said food insecurity was rampant in Sub-Saharan Africa even before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
“Climatic shocks to food production have continued in Sub-Saharan Africa—for instance, droughts in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel and floods in AFE. Maintaining long-term per capita production growth is becoming increasingly difficult with more frequent weather-induced setbacks, as food security is estimated to decline by 5-20 percent on average with each major episode of flooding or drought,” WBG explained.
The World Bank explained that the resurgence of violent conflict in recent years has disrupted transportation of food to markets and destroyed infrastructure and other forms of capital critical for crop production and income growth.
“Food price spikes and acute food shortages, in turn, have triggered social unrest and conflict,” said the World Bank.
However, the World Bank is optimistic that diversifying trade partners offers an opportunity to enhance resilience and supply new markets.
“Africa can step into opportunities to be suppliers of goods that are in high demand (minerals for green technologies and transition energy such as gas, among others),” the World Bank emphasized.
According to the World Bank, the complexity of competition from an enhanced trading network will heighten direct and indirect trading partnerships.
“Global evidence shows that a one standard deviation increase in trading partner diversification is associated with a 1-1.5 percentage point increase in growth,” World Bank experts observed.
But for that to happen, policies must support free flow of goods and services across borders while fostering competitiveness and market contestability are also critical to incentivize private sector participation.
