The African Union and food insecurity

Early this month, February, the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia played host to Heads of States of African nations. At this just-concluded Summit high-powered deliberations were held on the various issues covertly and overtly, affecting the continent.

Predictably, perennial matters such as terrorism and governance, COVID 19, multilateralism, the rising specter of coup d’etat, and food insecurity constituted the thrusts of the deliberations.

The theme of the Session: “Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent” was timely. Before dwelling on the theme, it should be noted that in the last few months, there were disruptions in governance by senior military officials in a number of African countries.

In Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Sudan, and Chad, military personnel succeeded in changing their governments while coup attempts failed in Guinea-Bissau and the Niger Republic.

Further, Omicron, a variant of COVID 19 that was first discovered in South Africa, caused some western nations to impose travel bans on African nations. That move may not be unconnected with the fact that the African continent is one of the regions in the world with the lowest vaccination rate.

When disaggregated, African countries did not fare well on each of the four sub components of the overall food security environment

The ominous manner in which military coups are returning to Africa will in no small measure add to the internal conflicts ravaging most countries on the continent.

In countries where military coups did not take place, governance is mired by either internal conflict such as the case of Ethiopia and Tigray, Cameroon and Ambazonia region, as well as the raging insurgency in some west and central African nations.

The theme of this year’s 35th AU’s Ordinary Session is of interest because adequate food supply otherwise known as food security determines the resilience of any nation. As it is today, there is hardly any nation in Africa that is food secure, and it is even much worse for Sub-Saharan African countries.

According to the different rankings of the Global Food Security Index (GFSI), none of the sub- Saharan African countries was ranked among the top 50 countries in the world in 2020 on the overall food security environment.

The GFSI has four major components which are: affordability, availability, quality, and safety, as well as natural resources and resilience. Countries are ranked from 0 to 100, with 100 being the most favourable food security environment.

In 2020, out of the 113 countries that were rated, the best ranked African countries on the overall score were Algeria, 54th with 63.9 score, Tunisia, 55th with 62.7 score; Morocco, 57th with 62.5 score; Egypt, 62nd with 60.8 score, and South Africa, 70th with 57.8 scores. This means that out of the five best-rated African countries, only one was from Sub-Saharan Africa.

The worst-rated countries were Ethiopia, 108th with 37.6 score; Malawi, 109th with 37.3 score; Sudan, 110th with 37.1 score; Mozambique, 111th with 35.7 score, and Burundi, 113th with 34.7 score.

When disaggregated, African countries did not fare well on each of the four sub-components of the overall food security environment.

On affordability, Algeria ranked 47th with a score of 77.9 to emerge as the best African country on that metric and it was followed by Morocco, 52nd with a score of 75.1; Tunisia, 56th with a score of 74.4; Botswana, 63rdwith a score of 69.6, and Egypt 68th with a score of 66.5.

The worst countries are from Africa, namely Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, and Malawi ranked 108th; 110th, 111th, 112th, and 113th respectively.

The best African countries on availability metric are Egypt, Algeria, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Tunisia ranked 49th, 56th; 58th, 63rd, and 66th while Zambia, Uganda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Mozambique are the worst African countries ranked 103rd, 106th, 107th, 108th, 109th, and 110th.

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On the quality and safety scale, the best rated African countries are Morocco, 50th; South Africa and Tunisia ranked 53rd each; Algeria, 67th and Mali, 69th while the worst African countries are Malawi, Sierra Leone, Congo, Togo and Mozambique ranked 109th, 110th, 112th, and 113th.

The quest for the control of the African continent back in the colonial days owed much to the resources endowment of the continent. In this regard, it is not surprising that some African countries are among the top 50 highly ranked countries on natural resources and resilience metrics.

Sierra Leone was ranked 22nd; Malawi, 29th, Togo, 32nd, Uganda, 37th, and Niger, 37th. On the contrary, Congo DR, Kenya, Ethiopia, Benin, Ghana, and Mozambique were ranked poorly on this particular scale.

Based on the foregoing, African heads of state should take the deliberations at the just concluded 35th Ordinary Session as urgent calls to action. There is too much poverty in Africa and the continent is highly food insecure.

One of the ways to address food insecurity in Africa is by supporting the small-holder farmers who account for over 70 percent of agricultural productivity on the continent. Unfortunately, most of the support meant for these peasant farmers end up being cornered by politicians.

Another measure to implement is to encourage value addition in the agriculture sector. The export of primary commodities should be discouraged if only because value-addition has the capacity to produce more jobs and in the process reduce unemployment which is a major and current problem in the continent.

The above measures and prescriptions will certainly go a long way to address not only food insecurity but also the high level of poverty and conflicts on the continent. In the process and in the context of the envisaged food security, Africa’s voice will be raised and heard in international trade.

And in saying this, time is of the essence. The issue of food security is very important if Africa wants to take her rightful place in the global comity of Nations.