Causing hunger

an overview of the food crisis in Africa

For people to be hungry in Africa in the 21st century is neither inevitable nor morally acceptable. The world’s 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.

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Summary

‘ We used to have a big farm – five hectares. We sold it one hectare at a time to pay to live. Now we can’t cultivate any more...We don’t have food because there is no-one to go and find food: my eldest children are dead. Before, I was able to work, but now we stay with hunger because there is nothing I can do. We miss our land.’

Milembe Mwandu, Shinyanga, Tanzania, April 2006

In 1960 Oxfam helped set up the Freedom from Hunger Campaign with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It was the first attempt to address the problem of food insecurity with something more than sacks of food aid for the hungry. The campaign set out to involve developing countries in analysing the causes of food crises and malnutrition, and to find sustainable solutions; in short, to enable people to grow or earn enough to feed themselves.

Forty-six years later, that worthy intention has plainly not been fulfilled in all parts of the world. While conditions vary greatly across Africa, across Sub Saharan Africa as a whole thirty-three per cent of Africans are under-nourished, compared with 17 per cent of people in developing countries as a whole. The proportion rises to 55 per cent in Central Africa. The average number of food emergencies in Africa per year almost tripled since the mid 1980s.

Another failure is on the horizon. The commitment made by governments to halve hunger by 2015, as part of the Millennium Development Goals, will not be met in Africa at current rates of progress.

These failures stem in part from the fact that, despite the promises of 1960 and many others made since, emergency aid, and food aid in particular, has remained the chief instrument to address food crises. Food aid does save lives, but it does not offer long-term solutions, and at worst it may exacerbate food insecurity. This is well known; yet spending on humanitarian aid has risen substantially, while aid for agricultural production in Sub Saharan Africa dropped by 43 per cent between 1990-92 to 2000-02. And neither African nor rich-country governments have done enough to tackle the root causes of hunger. We must now face the fact that we are dealing with food crises in Africa that may, in part, be blamed on the developmental inadequacies of our responses to earlier ones.

In mitigation, some of the causes of the current devastating food emergencies facing Africa could not have been foreseen 46 years ago. HIV/AIDS is exacting a terrifying toll on one of Africa’s key resources for food production – people. By 2020, a fifth of the agricultural workforce in southern African countries will have been claimed by AIDS.

Climate change is another unprecedented threat to food security. This will particularly affect the most vulnerable – smallholders and nomadic pastoralists – who are reliant on rain-fed agriculture. Researchers have credibly predicted that 55 to 65 milllion more Africans will be at risk of hunger by the 2080s, as a result of a global temperature rise of less than 2.5°C.

Most striking, however, is the deadly impact of Africa’s conflicts, which are the cause of more than half the continent’s 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. 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. 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. 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 Oxfam’s programme experience and research with pastoralists, farmers, and others across Africa.

Date of publication: July 2006