Despite extensive global economic growth in recent decades,
including in some of the poorest countries in Africa, millions of people remain
locked in a vicious cycle of hunger and poverty, In
total, 795 million people were hungry worldwide. According to the World Bank,
sub-Saharan Africa was the area with the second largest number of hungry
people, as Asia had 512 million, mainly due to the much larger population of
Asia when compared to sub-Saharan Africa. World Bank also reported in 2012 that
sub-Saharan Africa Poverty and Equity Data was 501 million people, or 47 per
cent Poverty has also been reported as the principal cause of hunger in Africa
and the principal causes of poverty have been found to be harmful economic
systems, conflict and population growth.
Given the current drought in Africa – and the accelerating
consequences of climate change on the environment – reaching this goal may be
difficult. The consequence will be ongoing food insecurity, including poor
nutrition and the poor health status that results from a lack of food
resources. Poverty means parents can't feed their families with enough
nutritious food, living children malnourished.
The United Nations released the Sustainable
Development Goals for implementation from 2016. Its targets are
to be achieved by 2030. The second goal is to end hunger, achieve food security
and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture completely. This is
more focused than the Millennium Development Goals which looked to reduce
the number to 50%.
Strategies to meet this goal emphasize investment and interventions in
agriculture to ensure sustainable food resources.
Governments in rapidly growing economies have more resources
to dedicate to improving food security and nutrition. But this does not
necessarily translate into food for all. For example, just over a quarter of Africa’s
population is food insecure – despite sufficient food being produced at the
national level.
Africa’s success in achieving long-term food and nutrition
security will depend on several key national and regional drivers. These
include committed political leadership and good governance, quality policies
and strategies in the food and agricultural sector, a sound macro-economic
environment, inclusive economic growth and increased economic integration.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the
prevalence of undernourishment in sub-Saharan Africa declined from 33% to 23%
between 1990/92 and
2014. But in fact the total number of undernourished people
increased during this period – from 175.7 million to 220 million. This was
partly due to an expanding population.
Solutions to ending hunger;
. Economic growth and wealth is necessary to make progress
in reducing poverty and hunger, especially in the face of an expanding
population. But governments need to do more than pursue economic growth. The
key factor in ensuring food security is inclusive growth – growth that promotes
access for everyone to food, assets and resources.
. Improving government policy, increasing political will and
application of community adapted strategies in tackling this issue is
fundamental. It should be recognized, not only as a public health issue, but as
a fundamental human right especially for children to eat. Starting life
disadvantaged with adverse consequences from malnutrition (ill health, mental retardation,
high malnutrition related morbidity and mortality resulting especially from
under-five deaths) is a neglected but serious developmental hindrance to Sub -
Saharan Africa.
. The fight against corruption must cease to be lip service
but actually get effective.
. The use of modern agricultural techniques to increase food
production is very essential. Provision or subsidization of the ministries of
Agriculture to provide fertilizers, use genetically modified foods to resist
adverse weather conditions and improve yield could be possible solutions to be
investigated.
. Improvement of the transport system to give access to
locals to sell their local produce to raise incomes for their families is
important.
. Base Line surveys to determine and understand sociocultural
peculiarities of each community during implementation of particular programs
are vital. Avoidance of vertical programs could be of great help.
. The ministry of environments of countries must engage in
programs to protect the environment which continues to be degrading. Feasible
and sustainable irrigation programs should be scaled up especially in drought
affected regions.
. The solution to this problem of malnutrition in developing
countries entails a multisectorial approach with well defined and achievable
goals. The ministries of health, education, agricultural, environment,
universities and research organizations and other non-governmental
organizations or international donors must work together if any tangible
outcomes are expected.
. Further research involving the potential acceptability of
new agricultural technologies, modern farming methods and genetically modified
foods in a Sub Saharan African context should be undertaken. Understanding the
socio cultural peculiarities of the milieu is fundamental. It might be
difficult and unproductive implementing some health promotion programs,
especially when they are very vertical and culturally inadapted. Implication of
the community representatives in the programs from the early planning stages
could be key determinants of program ownership, acceptability and
sustainability.
. Governments need to adopt an integrated approach to
effectively reduce hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in sub-Saharan
Africa. They also need to implement a mix of complementary and comprehensive
food security and nutrition policies and programmes.
In conclusion, greater urgency in building resilience of
households, communities and countries to climate variability and extremes is
needed. We need to face myriad of challenges to building institutional capacity
in designing, coordinating and scaling up actions for risk monitoring and early
warning systems, emergency preparedness and response, vulnerability reduction
measures, shock-responsive social protection, and planning and implementing
resilience-building measures. Strategies towards climate change adaptation and
disaster risk reduction must be aligned as well as coordinated with
interventions in nutrition and food systems across sectors #EndingHunger #ZeroHunger
#SDGS #ClimateChangeActions #SDGS #Sustainability #ResourceManagement #Humanity
#FoodSecurity #NutritionforAll
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