DAKAR, Senegal (PAMACC News) - Nearly 55 million people in West and Central Africa will struggle to feed themselves in the June-August 2024 lean season, according to the March 2024 Cadre Harmonisé food security analysis released by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS).
This figure represents a four-million increase in the number of people who are food-insecure compared to the November 2023 forecast and highlights a fourfold increase over the last five years. The situation is particularly worrying in conflict-affected northern Mali, where an estimated 2,600 people are likely to experience catastrophic hunger (IPC/CH phase 5). The latest data also reveals a significant shift in the factors driving food insecurity in the region, beyond recurring conflicts.
Economic challenges such as currency devaluations, soaring inflation, stagnating production, and trade barriers have worsened the food crisis, affecting ordinary people across the region with Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Mali being among the worst affected.
Prices of major staple grains continue to rise across the region from 10 percent to more than 100 percent compared to the five-year average, driven by currency inflation, fuel and transport costs, ECOWAS sanctions, and restrictions on agropastoral product flows. Currency inflation is a major driver of price volatility in Ghana (23%), Nigeria (30%), Sierra Leone (54%), Liberia (10%), and The Gambia (16%).
West and Central Africa remain heavily dependent on imports to meet the population's food needs. Still, import bills continue to rise due to currency depreciation and high inflation, even as countries struggle with major fiscal constraints and macroeconomic challenges.
Cereal production for the 2023-2024 agricultural season shows a deficit of 12 million tons, while the per capita availability of cereals is down by two percent compared to the last agricultural season.
“The time to act is now. We need all partners to step up, engage, adopt and implement innovative programs to prevent the situation from getting out of control, while ensuring no one is left behind,” said Margot Vandervelden, WFP’s Acting Regional Director for Western Africa. “We need to invest more in resilience-building and longer-term solutions for the future of West Africa,” she added.
Malnutrition in West and Central Africa is alarmingly high, with 16.7 million children under five acutely malnourished and more than 2 out of 3 households unable to afford healthy diets. In addition, 8 out of 10 children aged 6-23 months do not consume the minimum number of foods required for optimal growth and development.
High food prices, limited healthcare access, and inadequate diets primarily drive acute malnutrition in children under 5, adolescents, and pregnant women. In parts of northern Nigeria, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in women aged 15-49 years is as high as 31 percent.
"For children in the region to reach their full potential, we need to ensure that each girl and boy receives good nutrition and care, lives in a healthy and safe environment, and is given the right learning opportunities," said UNICEF Regional Director Gilles Fagninou. "Good nutrition in early life and childhood is the promise for a productive and educated workforce for tomorrow's society. To make a lasting difference in children's lives, we need to consider the situation of the child as a whole and strengthen education, health, water and sanitation, food, and social protection systems."
In response to increasingly growing needs, FAO, UNICEF, and WFP call on national governments, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to implement sustainable solutions that bolster food security, enhance agricultural productivity, and mitigate the adverse effects of economic volatility. Governments and the private sector need to collaborate to ensure that the fundamental human right to food is upheld for all.
In Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Niger, millions of people now benefit from national social protection programs supported by UNICEF and WFP. Both agencies are expanding their support to the Chad and Burkina Faso governments. Similarly, FAO, IFAD, and WFP have joined forces across the Sahel to increase productivity, availability, and access to nutritious food through resilience-building programs.
"To respond to the unprecedented food and nutrition insecurity, it is important to mobilize for the promotion and support of policies that can encourage the diversification of plant, animal, and aquatic production and the processing of local foods (through the provision of agricultural inputs, access to productive resources for all to stimulate increased production and improve product availability)" said FAO Sub-Regional Coordinator for West Africa and the Sahel, Dr. Robert Guei.
DAKAR, Senegal (PAMACC News) - Nearly 55 million people in West and Central Africa will struggle to feed themselves in the June-August 2024 lean season, according to the March 2024 Cadre Harmonisé food security analysis released by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS).
This figure represents a four-million increase in the number of people who are food-insecure compared to the November 2023 forecast and highlights a fourfold increase over the last five years. The situation is particularly worrying in conflict-affected northern Mali, where an estimated 2,600 people are likely to experience catastrophic hunger (IPC/CH phase 5). The latest data also reveals a significant shift in the factors driving food insecurity in the region, beyond recurring conflicts.
Economic challenges such as currency devaluations, soaring inflation, stagnating production, and trade barriers have worsened the food crisis, affecting ordinary people across the region with Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Mali being among the worst affected.
Prices of major staple grains continue to rise across the region from 10 percent to more than 100 percent compared to the five-year average, driven by currency inflation, fuel and transport costs, ECOWAS sanctions, and restrictions on agropastoral product flows. Currency inflation is a major driver of price volatility in Ghana (23%), Nigeria (30%), Sierra Leone (54%), Liberia (10%), and The Gambia (16%).
West and Central Africa remain heavily dependent on imports to meet the population's food needs. Still, import bills continue to rise due to currency depreciation and high inflation, even as countries struggle with major fiscal constraints and macroeconomic challenges.
Cereal production for the 2023-2024 agricultural season shows a deficit of 12 million tons, while the per capita availability of cereals is down by two percent compared to the last agricultural season.
“The time to act is now. We need all partners to step up, engage, adopt and implement innovative programs to prevent the situation from getting out of control, while ensuring no one is left behind,” said Margot Vandervelden, WFP’s Acting Regional Director for Western Africa. “We need to invest more in resilience-building and longer-term solutions for the future of West Africa,” she added.
Malnutrition in West and Central Africa is alarmingly high, with 16.7 million children under five acutely malnourished and more than 2 out of 3 households unable to afford healthy diets. In addition, 8 out of 10 children aged 6-23 months do not consume the minimum number of foods required for optimal growth and development.
High food prices, limited healthcare access, and inadequate diets primarily drive acute malnutrition in children under 5, adolescents, and pregnant women. In parts of northern Nigeria, the prevalence of acute malnutrition in women aged 15-49 years is as high as 31 percent.
"For children in the region to reach their full potential, we need to ensure that each girl and boy receives good nutrition and care, lives in a healthy and safe environment, and is given the right learning opportunities," said UNICEF Regional Director Gilles Fagninou. "Good nutrition in early life and childhood is the promise for a productive and educated workforce for tomorrow's society. To make a lasting difference in children's lives, we need to consider the situation of the child as a whole and strengthen education, health, water and sanitation, food, and social protection systems."
In response to increasingly growing needs, FAO, UNICEF, and WFP call on national governments, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to implement sustainable solutions that bolster food security, enhance agricultural productivity, and mitigate the adverse effects of economic volatility. Governments and the private sector need to collaborate to ensure that the fundamental human right to food is upheld for all.
In Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Niger, millions of people now benefit from national social protection programs supported by UNICEF and WFP. Both agencies are expanding their support to the Chad and Burkina Faso governments. Similarly, FAO, IFAD, and WFP have joined forces across the Sahel to increase productivity, availability, and access to nutritious food through resilience-building programs.
"To respond to the unprecedented food and nutrition insecurity, it is important to mobilize for the promotion and support of policies that can encourage the diversification of plant, animal, and aquatic production and the processing of local foods (through the provision of agricultural inputs, access to productive resources for all to stimulate increased production and improve product availability)" said FAO Sub-Regional Coordinator for West Africa and the Sahel, Dr. Robert Guei.
The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing for Development at a Crossroads (FSDR 2024) says urgent steps are needed to mobilise financing at scale to close the development financing gap, now estimated at USD 4.2 trillion annually, up from USD 2.5 trillion before the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions, climate disasters and a global cost-of-living crisis have hit billions of people, battering progress on healthcare, education, and other development targets.
“This report is yet another proof of how far we still need to go and how fast we need to act to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” said UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed. “We are truly at a crossroads and time is running out. Leaders must go beyond mere rhetoric and deliver on their promises. Without adequate financing, the 2030 targets cannot be met.”
With only six years remaining to achieve the SDGs, hard-won development gains are being reversed, particularly in the poorest countries. If current trends continue, the UN estimates that almost 600 million people will continue to live in extreme poverty in 2030 and beyond, more than half of them women.
“We’re experiencing a sustainable development crisis, to which inequalities, inflation, debt, conflicts and climate disasters have all contributed,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua. “Resources are needed to address this, and the money is there. Billions of dollars are lost annually from tax avoidance and evasion, and fossil fuel subsidies are in the trillions. Globally, there is no shortage of money; rather, a shortage of will and commitment.”
According to the report debt burdens and rising borrowing costs are large contributors to the crisis. Estimates are that in the least developed countries debt service will be USD 40 billion annually between 2023 and 2025, up more than 50 per cent from USD 26 billion in 2022. Stronger and more frequent climate related disasters account for more than half of the debt upsurge in vulnerable countries. The poorest countries now spend 12 per cent of their revenues on interest payments -- four times more than they spent a decade ago. Roughly 40 per cent of the global population live in countries where governments spend more on interest payments than on education or health.
While investment in SDG sectors had grown steadily in the early 2000s, major sources of development funding are now slowing down. For example, domestic revenue growth has stalled since 2010, especially in LDCs and other low-income countries, in part due to tax evasion and avoidance. Corporate income tax rates are falling, with global average tax rates down from 28.2 per cent in 2000 to 21.1 per cent in 2023, due to globalization and tax competition.
Meanwhile, Official Development Assistance from OECD countries and climate finance commitments are not being met. While ODA increased to an all-time high in 2022, reaching USD 211 billion, from USD 185.9 billion in 2021, much of the growth came from aid to refugees living in donor countries, and the total amount is inadequate for development. Only four countries met the UN aid target of 0.7 per cent of GNI in 2022.
The report concludes that the international financial system, which was set up at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, is no longer fit for purpose. It proposes a new coherent system that is better equipped to respond to crises, scales up investment in the SDGs especially through stronger multilateral development banks, and improves the global safety net for all countries.
The report points to the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024 as a crucial opportunity to change course. It highlights the June 2025 Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) as the critical moment for countries to commit to closing the development financing gap and invest in achieving the SDGs.
FfD4 is an opportunity for countries to:
- Close credibility gaps and rebuild trust in multilateralism.
- Close financing and investment gaps, at scale and with urgency.
- Reform and modernize the outdated international financial architecture and adjust international rules for trade, investment and finance.
- Formulate and finance new development pathways to deliver on the SDGs and ensure no one is left behind.
The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing for Development at a Crossroads (FSDR 2024) says urgent steps are needed to mobilise financing at scale to close the development financing gap, now estimated at USD 4.2 trillion annually, up from USD 2.5 trillion before the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions, climate disasters and a global cost-of-living crisis have hit billions of people, battering progress on healthcare, education, and other development targets.
“This report is yet another proof of how far we still need to go and how fast we need to act to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” said UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed. “We are truly at a crossroads and time is running out. Leaders must go beyond mere rhetoric and deliver on their promises. Without adequate financing, the 2030 targets cannot be met.”
With only six years remaining to achieve the SDGs, hard-won development gains are being reversed, particularly in the poorest countries. If current trends continue, the UN estimates that almost 600 million people will continue to live in extreme poverty in 2030 and beyond, more than half of them women.
“We’re experiencing a sustainable development crisis, to which inequalities, inflation, debt, conflicts and climate disasters have all contributed,” said UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Li Junhua. “Resources are needed to address this, and the money is there. Billions of dollars are lost annually from tax avoidance and evasion, and fossil fuel subsidies are in the trillions. Globally, there is no shortage of money; rather, a shortage of will and commitment.”
According to the report debt burdens and rising borrowing costs are large contributors to the crisis. Estimates are that in the least developed countries debt service will be USD 40 billion annually between 2023 and 2025, up more than 50 per cent from USD 26 billion in 2022. Stronger and more frequent climate related disasters account for more than half of the debt upsurge in vulnerable countries. The poorest countries now spend 12 per cent of their revenues on interest payments -- four times more than they spent a decade ago. Roughly 40 per cent of the global population live in countries where governments spend more on interest payments than on education or health.
While investment in SDG sectors had grown steadily in the early 2000s, major sources of development funding are now slowing down. For example, domestic revenue growth has stalled since 2010, especially in LDCs and other low-income countries, in part due to tax evasion and avoidance. Corporate income tax rates are falling, with global average tax rates down from 28.2 per cent in 2000 to 21.1 per cent in 2023, due to globalization and tax competition.
Meanwhile, Official Development Assistance from OECD countries and climate finance commitments are not being met. While ODA increased to an all-time high in 2022, reaching USD 211 billion, from USD 185.9 billion in 2021, much of the growth came from aid to refugees living in donor countries, and the total amount is inadequate for development. Only four countries met the UN aid target of 0.7 per cent of GNI in 2022.
The report concludes that the international financial system, which was set up at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, is no longer fit for purpose. It proposes a new coherent system that is better equipped to respond to crises, scales up investment in the SDGs especially through stronger multilateral development banks, and improves the global safety net for all countries.
The report points to the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024 as a crucial opportunity to change course. It highlights the June 2025 Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) as the critical moment for countries to commit to closing the development financing gap and invest in achieving the SDGs.
FfD4 is an opportunity for countries to:
- Close credibility gaps and rebuild trust in multilateralism.
- Close financing and investment gaps, at scale and with urgency.
- Reform and modernize the outdated international financial architecture and adjust international rules for trade, investment and finance.
- Formulate and finance new development pathways to deliver on the SDGs and ensure no one is left behind.
