Africa’s pulse report of October 2022 discusses short-term measures combined with medium- to long-term policy actions that can strengthen African countries' capacity to build resilience and seize opportunities to unlock productivity-enhancing growth while reducing food insecurity.

Context: a constrained macro-economic environment

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the regions most affected by the slow growth, elevated inflation, and tightening financial conditions in the global economy (figure 1.18). In addition, the food and energy crisis together with climate shocks, low productivity in agriculture and lack of infrastructure contribute to rising food insecurity in Africa.

African economies are facing a series of challenges to their post-pandemic recovery, economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to slow to 3.3 percent in 2022. Furthermore, the estimated per capita income growth in 2022 of 0.7 percent for the region is insufficient to meet the challenging goals of poverty and inequality reduction.(figure 1.21)

Food security crises in African region are becoming more frequent and more acute, affecting the poor disproportionately, and raising social tensions. In East and Southern Africa (AFE), severe food crisis episodes are taking place every 2.5 years in the 2000s, as opposed to one every decade previously. In 2021, the number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa suffering from severe food insecurity amounted to 294 million—up from 243 million in 2019. Of the 51 million additional people with severe food insecurity, more than 50 percent lives in AFW (27 million), and 44 percent (23 million) lives in East Africa (figure 2.4).Moreover, climatic shocks and conflicts have contributed to the recent steep increase in food insecurity and malnutrition in the region. Food security is estimated to decline by 5-20 percent on average with each major episode of flooding or drought. And the resurgence of violent conflict has disrupted structural factors for the promotion of food security: transportation, infrastructure and other forms of capital that are critical for crop production and income growth. Food insecurity is also driven by structural factors associated with low agricultural productivity such as lack water, unreliable energy and food waste.

Suggested policy actions

The report highlights the following short and medium- to long-term policy actions in order to transforms and modernize agri-food systems:

Reducing food loss and waste across the value chain is critical for Africa—and globally—to achieve a sustainable food future. Food loss and waste is estimated to be 30-50% of production. Solutions to this problem include: (1) minimizing storage losses with appropriate technologies (2) improving post-harvest and transport infrastructure; (3) developing a circular economy where by-products can be transformed into useful agricultural products.

Boosting the Quality of Public Investment to Raise Agricultural Productivity.

Evidence indicates that financing adaptation to climate change will be more cost-effective than financing increasingly frequent and severe crisis response, disaster relief, and recovery pathways. Africa has the potential to contribute to feeding nine billion people across the globe by 2050 as it has a significant amount of underutilized land and water resources. Scaling up climate-smart agriculture is critical for sustainable growth and fostering resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Leading adaption options for agri-food systems include (1) conducting research and extension to respond to emerging risks and gain better understanding of climate risks; (2) lowering the barriers to scaling up farmer-led irrigation; (3) promoting food value chain solutions; (4) scaling up sustainable soil, land, and forest management practices; and (5) using clean technologies along the agri-food value chain.

Social safety nets can reduce food insecurity in African countries. African governments should advance and fully embrace the potential of adaptive social protection as systems that deploy resources in response to shocks such as extreme weather events, conflicts, or natural disasters. In response to rising inflation, countries should use and expand their social safety nets to support the most vulnerable with targeted cash transfers. In countries with food security problems, additional support may be warranted through in-kind transfers, and use of food reserves when available. Social protection helps households build resilience to respond to shocks. School feeding programs have proven highly effective in alleviating food insecurity.

Some countries in the region restrict food trade, exacerbating price volatility and creating disincentives for future supply responses. Trading partner diversification is particularly important for agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Fostering regional and trade integration, and deepening trade in agricultural products, inputs, and technologies within Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond can create and expand business opportunities, as well as enhance the resilience of agri-food systems to international market shocks. In this context, the local, regional, and global trade policy architecture is an essential part of the food security ecosystem. Enhancing food control systems is also critical for growing and sustaining the expansion of intraregional agricultural trade in Africa. Hence, there is a need to strengthen the capacity of countries to comply with food safety standards.

The continent needs to develop a new agrarian system—one that combines smallholder farmers with a new dynamic generation of medium-sized and large commercial farmers while preserving its natural capital. This emerging segment of dynamic, commercially-oriented, small/medium-sized farmers can become a significant source of demand for innovation, capital investment, and service provision, which together will drive productivity growth.