African regional overview of food security and nutrition 2020: transforming food systems for affordable health diets

Abstract

Africa has seen the food security situation worsen over the past few years, and in 2019, there were 250.3 million undernourished people in Africa: 15.6 million in Northern Africa and 234.7 million in sub Saharan Africa. While the prevalence of undernourishment fell over the 2000 to 2014 period, rapid population growth meant that the number of undernourished people remained at about 200 million. However, after 2014, the situation deteriorated, and the prevalence of undernourishment rose from 17.6 in 2014 to 19.1 percent in 2019. As a consequence, the number of undernourished people in Africa increased by 47.9 million between 2014 and 2019, accounting for most of the 58.9 million global increase in the undernourished. This report presents a broad overview of the food system in Africa and the food consumption patterns across low- and middle-income African countries. The picture that emerges is that the food system in Africa does not provide food at a cost that makes healthy diets affordable to the majority of the population, and this is reflected in the high disease burden associated with maternal and child malnutrition, high body-mass, micronutrient deficiencies and dietary risk factors. The findings presented in the 2020 Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition highlight the importance of prioritizing the transformation of food systems to ensure access to affordable and healthy diets for all, produced in a sustainable manner.