Food security in Africa: promoting sub regional partnership to boost agricultural production

Abstract

This report analyses food security in West Africa and is the thematic section of the 2009 Economic Report on West Africa prepared by the ECA Subregional Office for West Africa. It is coming at the right time given the food crisis experienced in 2008, caused by the steep rise in food prices aggravated by the added effects of climate change, the global increase in consumption, changes in modes of consumption and decline in global stocks, and exacerbated by the soaring oil prices and the global financial crisis. Confronted to the crisis and its economic and social effects in West Africa and the continent as a whole, Governments reacted with several measures aiming mostly at fiscal cuts and use of their preserves to mitigate the impact of soaring oil prices on households. But these measures are proving to be unsustainable in the long-term. Analysts believe that the lasting solution calls for sub-regional resources to be harnessed to intensify domestic production and reduce the harmful effects of overdependence on imports and the attendant hazards. The study paints a picture of the general situation with regard to productions, imports and potential. More importantly, however, it focuses on the deep causes of the inadequacies that continue to condemn the sub-region to food insecurity and the ways and means to intensify production and rectify the situation.