Zero hunger in Africa by 2025 is possible

The NEPAD Agency and the Pardee Center for International Futures have launched a report that will help to put in perspective the magnitude of the task ‘to zero hunger by 2025’.

The ‘Zero hunger in Africa by 2025: conditions for success report’ highlights the major levers in policies, investments, technologies as well as human and institutional capacities necessary to sustain desired levels of supply and demand-access to food.

Nearly one in five people is hungry. Hunger has decreased steadily since the mid-1990s, due to population growth. However, it has actually increased in absolute numbers. In addition, net food imports since the early 1990s have grown to about 14 percent of the total demand.

One of the goals set in the 2014 Malabo Declaration, through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), is ending hunger in Africa by 2025.

The CEO of the NEPAD Agency, Dr Ibrahim Mayaki, has emphasised that success in Africa will therefore be through regional integration, be it in ending hunger, agriculture or infrastructure.

“We cannot continue doing business as we are doing it today, since growth in Africa has not been inclusive enough. We need improved capacity to implement various interventions to do things differently if we are to deliver on Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the goal of eliminating hunger by 2025,” he underscored.

During the launch of the report on ending hunger in Africa, it was recognised that while the goal of eliminating hunger by 2025 might be very ambitious, it is not impossible.

Dr Lindiwe Sibanda, CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), noted that hunger affects women and children disproportionately, while women are the backbone of agriculture in Africa.

“The face of hunger in Africa is that 32 percent of under-5 children are stunted – the numbers have stagnated instead of going down. If the cognitive capacity of children in Africa is reduced for life, who are the future leaders for the continent? Agriculture needs to be more nutrition sensitive. Hidden hunger challenges are therefore critical and need to be addressed,” Dr Sibanda said.

Steve Hedden, Research System Developer from Pardee Center maintained that how we define hunger will dictate how we get there and how we reach our targets.

The available food needs to be increased by 437 million metric tons by 2025 or 47 percent of current demand. To do this requires cropland to increase by 1.5 percent; crop yields need to increase by 3.2 percent, and livestock head size needs to increase by 5.8 percent year.

In order for Africa to attain its goal by 2025, a wide range of actions by different actors to bring about the necessary substantial change in the dynamics of demand and supply is requisite:

On the supply side is productivity and production – expansion of cropland, yield increase, livestock heads and reduction of post-harvest losses.

And on the demand side is increasing access – incomes, consumer subsidies, prices, school feeding programmes, support to under-5 children and mothers, including pregnant women.

It was concluded that any efforts to eliminate hunger will have to factor in robust risk assessments, including climate change.

“If we continue on the current trajectory, we will not be able to achieve the Malabo Declaration target of ending hunger by 2025 and eliminating child stunting. Conditions for success include political will, as well as addressing the challenges of the impact of climate change and weather shocks,” concurred Chris Nikoi, Regional Director for World Food Programme in Johannesburg.