A free market Washington-based think-tank is warning that without massive investment in Africa’s food sector and rural infrastructure, along with significant trade liberalization, poverty and chronic hunger on the continent will increase.
But in the report published Aug. 11, the International Food Policy Research Institute signalled it is pessimistic that the necessary reforms will be done to actually reduce African hunger.
Continued soil degradation, poor water management, tepid investment policies and poor government performance are more likely, said the report’s authors.
“Given these worrisome trends and projections, an alternative pessimistic scenario may represent a more plausible future for Africa,” said the report. “The pessimistic scenario envisions a future in which trends in agricultural production and nutrition deteriorate. African countries experience a decline in investments both nationally and from international donors, education investments decline and higher numbers of households remain without access to clean water in 2025.”
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The institute said that would result in a 66 percent increase in malnourished young children to 55 million by 2025. It prefers to promote what it considers a more positive outcome, if only the proper political and economic decisions are made during the next 20 years. But even the report’s authors concede prospects for such an outcome are daunting.
It would require investments worth close to $360 billion in roads, education, water purification facilities, irrigation, agricultural research and integration of African women into the agricultural and education systems.
It also presumes sharp reductions in trade barriers, government intervention in African agriculture and subsidy and import rules in rich countries.
The analysis cites a British report conclusion that European Union domestic farm subsidies and import restrictions cost Africa $11 billion in food sales to the EU. Those sales could increase the annual income of African families by almost 13 percent.
“If the agricultural policies of Canada, Japan and the United States were included in the analysis, results would indicate major advances in poverty and food security in African countries,” said the report.
The report noted Africa is the only area in the world in which food insecurity has risen in the past decades.
“The absolute number of malnourished people in Africa has increased substantially with population growth, from around 88 million in 1970 to an estimate of over 200 million in 1999-2001.”
The institute said political and investment decisions could reverse that drift: “This discouraging trend need not be a blueprint for the future.”
But it concedes that the decisions needed to reverse the trend will be expensive and far from certain.
