Food Crises in Africa: An Overview
Food Crises in Africa: An Overview
Food Crises in Africa: An Overview
Food crises in
Africa: an
overview
For people to be hungry in Africa in the 21st century is neither
inevitable nor morally acceptable. The worlds emergency
response requires an overhaul so that it delivers prompt,
equitable, and effective assistance to people suffering from lack
of food. More fundamentally, governments need to tackle the
root causes of hunger, which include poverty, agricultural
mismanagement, conflict, unfair trade rules, and the
unprecedented problems of HIV/AIDS and climate change. The
promised joint effort of African governments and donors to
eradicate poverty must deliver pro-poor rural policies that
prioritise the needs of marginalised rural groups such as small-
holders, pastoralists, and women.
Most striking, however, is the deadly impact of Africas conflicts, which are
the cause of more than half the continents food crises. In every country that
has suffered a prolonged food emergency, war or civil strife has played a
major part. Although African governments have a responsibility to protect
their populations, there is persistent failure to do so, as witnessed in
northern Uganda, or even complicity in violence as occurred in Darfur.
+++++
According to the FAO, the proportion of human-induced food emergencies
has more than doubled over the last 14 years. 6 But what humans have
broken, humans can mend. Oxfam firmly believes that the hunger and
starvation seen in much of Africa in this first decade of the 21st century are
no more inevitable than they are morally acceptable.
The world has the resources and know-how to guarantee the right to food,
which is enshrined in United Nations (UN) conventions. 7 And this is not a
side-issue: malnutrition is crippling to both individuals and society. At its
most extreme, hunger kills, with young children and babies often the first to
die. More commonly it weakens people, draining them of the energy that
they need to work, and making them more prone to disease. Extreme
malnutrition in children reduces school performance and causes long-term
brain damage, which affects their future livelihoods and reduces economic
growth 8 . The provision of proper nutrition and food security is central to
achieving many of the Millenium Development Goals, such as reducing
poverty and child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating
disease. To help Africa to fulfill its potential we must address the problem of
hunger.
This paper describes two key challenges in reducing hunger in Africa. The
first is to improve the immediate response to food crises. The second is to
tackle the root causes of acute and recurring hunger. The paper is not a
complete explanation of causes and solutions. Rather, it hopes to offer some
insights based on Oxfams programme experience and research with
pastoralists, farmers, and others across Africa.
Better emergency response
First, the emergency, or humanitarian, system must be overhauled, so that
it is truly able to deliver prompt, effective assistance on the basis of need. It
must support peoples livelihoods as well as meeting the immediate needs of
the hungry. The stop-start approach must give way to longer-term support,
wherever possible delivered through governments as part of their wider
social protection programmes, backed by reliable funding.
In recent years, international emergency assistance to sub-Saharan Africa
has increased and it has helped save many lives. However, it is often still
too little too late, and there remain gross inequalities in its distribution. The
timing and scale of a response are often driven more by political interests
and media exposure than by objectively assessed humanitarian need.
Moreover, the type of aid is still often inappropriate. It is not right that 70 per
cent of food aid distributed by the UN is still the produce of the developed
world: food aid should not be a means of supporting farmers in these
countries. When hunger is caused by lack of access to food as a result of
Inappropriate aid
Emergency food aid 23 is still the dominant response to food crises,
regularly constituting over half of all UN consolidated emergency
appeals. 24 Only 17 per cent of the non-food needs identified in the
recent UN appeal for Kenya, for example, were funded, compared to
46 per cent of food needs. 25 However, while food aid can play a
crucial role in saving lives and reducing hunger, it is at best an
incomplete response, and at worst can exacerbate food insecurity if it
harms farmers livelihoods. 26 Since much in-kind food aid is
imported, it can take up to four or five months to arrive. It may cost
as much as 50 per cent more than food purchased locally, and may be
nutritionally limited and culturally inappropriate. 27 For example, in
2004, Canada spent up to 40 per cent of its food aid budget on
transportation, before changing its policy to allow increased local
sourcing. 28
The disproportionate emphasis on in-kind food-aid donations is
partly due to vested interests. For some donor countries it has been a
useful way of offloading their own agricultural surpluses and
providing commercial benefits to their own agricultural and shipping
companies: 79 per cent of total food aid is sourced in donor countries.
In the case of rice and wheat, for example, the buying up of food
stocks for use as foreign aid is a form of domestic subsidy, and can
actively harm farmers in the developing world. The US, which is the
biggest donor, provides most of its food aid in kind, but sources 99
Getting it right
The challenge for governments, UN agencies, donor governments,
and NGOs is to ensure a response to food crises that is tailored to
each particular situation, and used to support livelihoods as well as
meeting immediate needs. The record is not good. A recent report for
USAID on Ethiopia said that international donor and government
non-food aid responses to the 2003 crisis were critically insufficient,
and that the USA (until recently) and the EU had prioritised
Cash-for-work in Kenya
So far Ive received 5,000 shillings of the 10,000 well get from cash-for-
work. Im paying for my brother to attend school. He is at secondary
school so we have to pay for that. Ive spent 3,000 on school fees, another
1,000 Ive spent on medication for one of my sons. With the remaining
1,000 I managed to buy two kids (goats). One I call Oxfam!
Pamela Ataa in Turkana, northern Kenya
Providing cash to households through a cash-for-work programme gives
people the dignity to make choices and buy what they need to support their
families. 22,000 people are benefiting from Oxfam's cash-for-work
programme in Turkana, northern Kenya, for households that have limited
livelihoods options and are not able to provide fully for their families. They
work on a range of projects benefiting individual households or the whole
community, such as improving water sources and planting trees. For
example, Pamela helped to protect a hand pump and redirect a local river
so that it filled the hand-dug wells. Oxfams experience has shown that
households spend the money on food and other basic necessities, and
invest in the future by buying tools, for example. It means that people do
not have to resort to detrimental strategies to survive, such as selling off
livestock. The provision of cash also helps to revitalise the local economy.
Source: Oxfam
The main pressure for pro-poor and inclusive governance will have
to come internally from progressive leaders, civil society, and the
media. However, rich-country policies have also exerted a powerful
constraining influence on development throughout Africas history.
Since the 1980s, inadequate debt cancellation, declining and poor-
quality development aid, flawed advice from donors, conditions
attached to aid that forced countries to adopt damaging agricultural
policies, and unfair trade rules have all contributed to low growth in
sub-Saharan Africa, exacerbating problems caused by poor
governance. 50 There is also evidence that international donors have
not always properly enforced conditions attached to loans and aid
designed to promote good governance, and thus contributed to
cultures of clientilism and corruption. 51
Although far short of what is needed, the G8 commitments in 2005 to
increase development aid and cancel debts to reduce poverty must be
translated into action. Donor countries should also ensure that their
wider international policies whether trade, energy, or security are
consistent with their commitments to reduce poverty.
Fears that aid will be siphoned off by corrupt elites or used for
political purposes should not be an excuse for inaction: the evidence
shows that development aid has provided vital resources for human
development in Africa, and most studies show that it has contributed
to growth. 52 Moreover, the policy environment for aid is improving.
Many sub-Saharan African governments are developing national
poverty-reduction strategies. There has been movement among
donors to ensure that aid is used for poverty reduction rather than for
Agriculture
In the immediate future, efforts to tackle the root causes of hunger in
most sub-Saharan African countries should focus mainly on the rural
sector, which accounts for 70 per cent of the population and two-
thirds of livelihoods. 55 Although food insecurity is growing in urban
and peri-urban areas, particularly where HIV/AIDS is prevalent,
most of Africas poor and undernourished groups still live in rural
areas. 56 Despite this, an important underlying cause of food crises
has been government neglect or mismanagement of agriculture,
along with flawed donor advice and conditionality.
It is crucial that the promised joint effort of African governments and
donors to eradicate poverty, through the New Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD) and the Africa Commission, delivers
effective agricultural policies that involve and prioritise smallholders,
pastoralists, and women. 57 Even modest gains in output and income
among these groups would do much to reduce hunger and poverty. 58
Evidence indicates that countries that have improved food security
have had an overriding government commitment to the smallholder
agricultural sector. 59 It also shows that rural growth can drive
growth in the rest of the economy. 60
Conflict
The main driver for guns is not criminality, it's self-preservation. The need
to live another day. Neighbours are armed and we are faced with extinction.
There's the need to be responsible without aggression.
Edaan Johnmark, Oxfam partner, Riam Riam, Turkana, northern
Kenya
Conflict, and the related displacement and exile of millions of people,
is responsible for more than half of the reported food emergencies in
Africa as of February 2005. 85 The high rate of chronic under-
nourishment in the Democratic Republic of Congo for example 71
per cent of the population in 2002 is in large part due to its
prolonged civil war. 86
Conflict disrupts economic activity, reduces investment, and diverts
resources to military purposes. Many people are displaced or take
refuge in urban centres, flee the country or are conscripted, wounded,
or killed, thus leaving farms unattended, with drastic consequences
for food production. Fear and insecurity often prevent people tending
farms or livestock. Rural infrastructure and markets can be
destroyed, and cultivable land can be made inaccessible by
landmines. Insecurity restricts mobility and grazing, and
impoverishment due to conflict prompts people to engage in risky
and illegal activities.
While these effects are sometimes the unintended result of conflict,
they can also form part of a war strategy. International humanitarian
law prevents warring parties from targeting civilian food stocks,
crops, or livestock, and coerced population displacement is expressly
prohibited. Governments are also required to protect civilians during
conflict and to provide humanitarian assistance or enable its
provision by impartial organisations. However, warring parties
sometimes actively deny access to food to communities or ethnic
groups perceived as supporting the opposition. This may involve
acts of commission such as deliberate bombing of farms, or looting of
livestock; or acts of omission such as the failure of authorities to
HIV/AIDS
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 26 million people living with HIV,
more than 60 per cent of all the people in the world with the virus.
This is in addition to other debilitating ailments, such as malaria, TB,
and diarrhoea. In 2005, HIV/AIDS killed about 2.4 million people in
Africa, mainly prime-age adults, crippling the workforce, ripping the
heart out of communities and families, and leaving around 12 million
orphans. Southern African countries are particularly badly affected. 87
HIV/AIDS constitutes a human tragedy and a threat to food security.
Sickness and ill health reduce peoples ability to cultivate their land
or to work off-farm. Death prevents parents passing on vital
agricultural or other skills to their children. The time spent caring for
others, a job that often falls to women, reduces the time available for
productive work. The need to pay for medicines means that families
sell farm tools or even the land they depend upon. Maize production
on communal farms in Zimbabwe fell by 54 per cent between 1992
and 1997, largely because of AIDS-related illness and death. 88 This
creates a vicious cycle, as under-nutrition exacerbates the onset of
opportunistic infections and AIDS, as well as reducing the
effectiveness of anti-retrovirals.
Gender inequality, and high levels of sexual abuse in some countries,
place women at greater risk of infection. As women are mainly
responsible for food production and caring for children, this can have
negative impacts on household nutrition. Moreover, the fact that
AIDS widows in some countries have difficulty obtaining credit, or
have lost their rights over land, increases the difficulties they face in
providing food for their families. 89
The hopeful news is that both government and international
responses to AIDS have improved over the past decade. There has
been an increase in health spending by African governments,
supported by aid and debt cancellation; 90 prevention programmes in
some countries are helping to reduce infection rates; and growing
sections of civil society across Africa, such as the Treatment Action
Climate change
This development, like cars, that is bringing stress to the land and plastics
are being burnt and are filling the air. We think there is a lot of connection
between that and what is happening now with the droughts. If you bring oil
and petrol and throw it onto the grass it doesnt grow, so what are all these
cars and new innovations doing to a bigger area? Every day diseases are
increasingones that we havent seen before.
Sesophio, Maasai tribesman displaced from the Serengeti by
drought, Tanzania, April 2006
Africa is the continent most vulnerable to climate change because of
its extreme poverty and dependence on rain-fed agriculture, which
means that even small changes in the weather can have big impacts.
Climate data for Africa for the last 3040 years show that the
continent has been warming, contributing to more erratic but intense
rains, in other words more droughts but also more floods. 94 It is
estimated that desertification is advancing at an annual rate of 3.5 per
cent in sub-Saharan Africa, with much higher rates in the arid and
semi-arid areas. If current trends continue, some climate models
predict that by 2050 Africa will be warmer by 0.52 degrees Celsius,
1
FAO (2004) State of Food Insecurity in the World.
2
FAO (2003) State of Food Insecurity in the World.
3
FAO (2005) State of Food Insecurity in the World, foreword: If each of
the developing regions continues to reduce hunger at the current pace, only
South America and the Caribbean will reach the Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) target of cutting the proportion of hungry people by half. None
will reach the more ambitious World Food Summit (WFS) goal of halving the
number of hungry people.
4
FAO (2003) op. cit.
5
Dr J. Lorimer, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, background
research paper on the predicted climate change impacts of greatest
relevance to Oxfam, quoting M. Parry et al. (1999) Climate change and
world food insecurity: a new assessment, Global Environmental Change 9,
supplement 1.
6
FAO (2005) op. cit.
7
See Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 25, and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, article 11.
8
GDP lost to malnutrition runs as high as 2 to 3 percent. World Bank (2006)
Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development, Overview, Directions in
Development.
9
There is no universally accepted definition of a food crisis or acute food
insecurity, but a working definition for Oxfam is a situation of unusually
severe food insecurity that threatens peoples lives and/or livelihoods. This
happens when people experience: a large reduction in their major source of
food due to external shock and are unable to make up the difference through
new strategies; the prevalence of malnutrition is abnormally high for the time
of year, and this cannot be accounted for by either health or other factors;
people are using coping strategies that are damaging their livelihoods in the
longer term, or engaging in illegal or immoral activities to gain food. A famine
is an accelerated deterioration in peoples lives which occurs when they are
unable to meet their needs through survival strategies or are displaced into
camp environments, and malnutrition and deaths increase.
10
UN, OCHA.
11
Kenyan government figures.
12
AU (2005) Status of Food Security and Prospects for Agricultural
Development in Africa, and CSOPNU (30 March 2006) Counting the Cost:
Twenty Years of War in Northern Uganda.
13
UNICEF define undernutrition or malnutrition - as the outcome of
insufficient food intake (hunger) and repeated infectious diseases.
Undernutrition includes being underweight for ones age, too short for ones
37
Food crises in Africa: an overview, Oxfam Briefing Paper, July 2006
Oxfam International is a confederation of twelve organisations working together in more than
100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice: Oxfam America, Oxfam Australia,
Oxfam-in-Belgium, Oxfam Canada, Oxfam Germany, Oxfam Great Britain, Oxfam Hong Kong,
Intermn Oxfam (Spain), Oxfam Ireland, Oxfam New Zealand, Oxfam Novib (Netherlands), and
Oxfam Qubec. Please call or write to any of the agencies for further information, or visit
www.oxfam.org.
Oxfam International Secretariat: Suite 20, 266 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 7DL, UK
Tel: +44.(0)1865.339100. E-mail: information@oxfaminternational.org. Web site: www.oxfam.org