- More than 63.5 million people are facing food insecurity in East Africa.
- Over three million people have fled war-torn Sudan, while11 million remain internally displaced in the country.
- Double whammy of conflict, and bad weather crises are exasperating food insecurity in the region.
The World Food Program (WFP) has raised concern that food security and poor nutrition in East Africa is taking an “alarming” tangent in a region where a double whammy of conflict and poor weather patterns are conspiring, pushing millions at risk.
WFP says that as of October, more than 63.5 million people were under food insecurity in Eastern Africa with the situation particularly dire in conflict stricken countries such as Sudan.
The UN agency stated that conflict, inflation, disease outbreaks and poor access to nutritious diets as well as poor access to safe drinking water are to blame for the worsening state of food security and nutrition in Eastern Africa.
So far, over three million people have fled Sudan over the past 18 months to seek refuge in neighboring countries, An estimated 11 million people remain displaced in Sudan as opposing groups wreak havoc in the nation.
The region has also suffered intense rains as of June through to September, which have caused flooding and impacted more than two million people across the region. “Those affected include 1.4 million in South Sudan, 681,248 in Sudan, 120,000 in Ethiopia, and 286,762 in Uganda. With the seasonal rains having ended in the north of the region, floodwaters have receded or expected to recede in some areas but will persist in parts of South Sudan,” the United Nations has reported.
The UN has said the floods have disrupted crop production in South Sudan and negatively impacted the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Worse still, the situation is expected to worsen food insecurity as a result of poor harvests.
Similar reports are emerging from Somalia where it is projected that 4.4 million or 23 per cent of the population has been affected.
Owing to the worsening farm produce shortage, food prices across the Eastern Africa region have fluctuated drastically with an average inflation rate of 16.7 per cent reported as of September.
South Sudan is reported to have recorded the highest food inflation reaching 96.4 per cent followed by Burundi and Ethiopia at 19.7 and 19.6 per cent respectively.
Conflict in Sudan has also impacted the business environment leading to high production and transportation costs which in turn have driven up food prices across the region.
As early as March of this year, there are an estimated 54 million food-insecure people in Eastern Africa. Hotspot countries include Sudan (17.7 million), Ethiopia (15.8 million people), and South Sudan (5.7 million). Some 23.4 million people are displaced internally or abroad, including 5 million refugees and asylum seekers and 18.4 million IDPs.
“The war in Sudan continues to be a leading cause of increased cases of malnutrition and associated mortality in the region,” the UN decries.
In South Sudan, the agency reports that between July 2023 and June 2024, an estimated 1.7 million children between six and 59 months suffered acute malnutrition and another 500,000 children are expected to suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and this includes at least 870,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women, the UN reports.
“In neighbouring Ethiopia, prolonged drought coupled with malaria, measles, and cholera outbreaks have further deteriorated nutritional security with Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates beyond the emergency threshold, that is, over 15 per cent,” reads the UN report in part.
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EAC taking action to curb food insecurity
Faced with the unravelling scenario, authorities in the region are deploying measures to help enhance food security.
“The economies and livelihoods of citizens in East Africa are predominantly dependent on agriculture and the sector accounts for 25 per cent to 40 per cent of EAC Gross Domestic Product (GDP) given the fact that the sector employs over 80 per cent of the population in the region,” reads the EAC report.
Likewise, the EAC cites that more than 70 per cent of the industries in the EAC are agro-based and depend on agriculture as the main source of raw materials. Also, agricultural commodities make up more than 65 per cent of the volume of intra-regional trade in the EAC.
“Cooperation in agriculture and food security is one of the priorities that feature prominently in the EAC integration process…achievement of food security and rational agricultural production, sustainability of national agricultural programs, are among the top priorities to achieve food sufficiency within the EAC region,” reads the report.
To this end, the EAC Agricultural and Rural Development Policy (EAC-ARDP) was developed as a fundamental step in implementing one of the key objectives necessary to ensure sustainable agricultural development and food security in the EAC region.
The EAC-ARDP provides a roadmap for EAC Partner States and other stakeholders in defining interventions that will lead to achievement of food security in the region, the report reads.
The EAC Vision 2050 prioritizes agriculture as the sector that will be the driver of industrial transformation, food security, rural development and economic prosperity in EAC. Another initiative is the EAC Food Security Action Plan (FSAP) that has been adopted to guide the coordination and implementation of flagship projects and programmes aimed at catalysing agricultural transformation.
Then there is the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) that is under the African Union umbrella and serves as Africa’s policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition security and economic growth.
“The EAC has embraced and domesticated the CAADP agenda and remains committed to the African Heads of State Malabo Declaration on Agriculture Growth and Transformation in Africa,” says the report.
Notably, the Malabo Declaration is now a decade old but few countries have achieved the commitments they signed to in the pact. In view of the poor performance in regards to the implementation of commitments made in the Malabo Declaration, the report says “EAC partner states have developed Malabo compliant National Agriculture Investment Plans (NAIPs) that are the main vehicles for implementation and actualization of Malabo Declaration commitments.”
