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African hunger

Last reviewed: 14-10-2008

THE NEVER-ENDING CRISIS


A woman carries water past empty granaries in the village of Madoufa in northwestern Niger, August 2005. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly
A woman carries water past empty granaries in the village of Madoufa in northwestern Niger, August 2005. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly
More than 210 million people are chronically malnourished across Africa.

  • Millions without the means to sustain their way of life
  • Emergency food aid ineffective
  • Rising food and transport costs

    Despite claims of a soar in emergency and development aid since 2000, underlying problems such as poverty, HIV/AIDS and climate change remain unsolved. Traditional social organisations and welfare systems capable of looking after the most vulnerable are collapsing under the weight of extreme poverty combined with explosive rates of HIV infection.

    Soaring global food costs are exacerbating the situation for the poorest, especially the urban poor, and pushing more people closer to the edge of emergency.

    Increasingly, organisations such as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation are saying aid should be provided in the form of cash or food coupons rather than food shipments, which can affect producers and markets in recipient countries and distort international trade.

    In the search for solutions, the debate over hunger in Africa continues to attract a complex range of intersecting and often contradictory opinions, theories, interests and ambitions. It is also characterised by an almost complete lack of global consensus as to what needs to be done about it.

    KEY FACTS


    Number of malnourished in 2005 212 million (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation - FAO (2008))
    Hunger-related deaths 2.9 million per year (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI))
    Malnourished as percentage of total population 30 percent in sub-Saharan Africa (FAO (2008))
    Number of people living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa 22 million (UNAIDS (2008))

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