2017 Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition

This year's report, which features the theme: "The Food Security and Nutrition - Conflict Nexus: Building Resilience for Food Security, Nutrition and Peace" was launched at the joint FAO/WHO Africa Regional Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition  in Abidjan from 16 to 17 November 2017.

The report indicates that during the first decade of the millinium, sub-Saharan Africa made sound progress in the fight against hunger with the prevalence of undernourishment falling from 29.1 percent to 20.6 percent. However, this was followed by a period of no progress with a worsening of conditions in 2015 and 2016 in many countries. This was mainly due to the impact of conflict and adverse climatic conditions such as repeated droughts - often linked to the El Niño phenomenon - resulting in poor harvests and the loss of livestock.

The FAO report identifies a range of pathways through which support to food security and livelihoods can also help build resilience against conflict and contribute to sustaining peace. Given the complexity of conflicts and the conflict-food insecurity nexus, which climate change may amplify, a sustainable impact of food security and nutrition-related interventions on peace is more likely when implemented as part of a broader, multisectoral set of interventions before, during and after conflicts.

The report notes how many countries have developed or are developing policy frameworks and investment plans that are aligned with the goals of the Malabo Declaration and SDG 2. And this requires adequate funding, setting the right priorities and strengthening institutional capacities.

Lewis Hove FAOR South Africa a.i.
and Roger Nkodo Dang,
President of the Pan-African Parliament
at the launch of the new project 

Related
Improving legislative capacity to advance food and nutrition security in Africa.
11 October 2017, Midrand -The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Pan-African Parliament have launched a partnership to improve legislation of food and nutrition security issues in Africa.

The two -year project aims at enhancing the technical capacities of the Pan-African Parliament and the Pan-African Parliamentary Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition (PAPA-FSN). It will also benefit legislators in four pilot countries; Cameroun, Madagascar, Sierra Leone and Uganda to advance strategies, policies and laws on the right-to-adequate-food, investments in food and nutrition security at the national and regional levels, in collaboration with the Department for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission (AUC-DREA).

• South -South cooperation is key tool in building Pan African Parliamentary Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition Bureau and Executive members capacity in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes on Food Security and Nutrition. 
• To this end the PAPA-FSN is working very closely with the Latin American and Caribbean Parliamentary Front against Hunger through sharing of experiences on successes and challenges in legislating for Food Security and Nutrition Security, sharing of legislation already passed and critical entry point and lesson learnt in the legislative process. 
• PAPA-FSN is also working with the European Parliament Alliance on Food Security and Nutrition and is working with the Spanish Development Agency in hosting the Global Parliamentary Conference on Food Security and Nutrition to be hosted in November 2018. 
• It is hoped that this global conference will bring Parliamentarians all together to share their work on Food Security and Nutrition, success, lessons learnt and challenges as well as to strategies on how to strategically put food security and Nutrition at the forefront of development discourse.