Financing sustainable nutrition in Africa for “stable and peaceful societies”

24 Jul 2023 --- The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a sustainable nutrition report to tackle the growing issue of food insecurity and hunger on the African continent, as “it has been worsening considerably since 2019.” The report highlights the need for investments while addressing their global importance.

The estimated nutrition-specific future financing needs have increased from US$7 billion to US$11 billion annually between 2022 and 2030 because of the escalation of malnutrition.

The FAO states that donor countries worldwide should “fulfill their commitments to nutrition” and increase the budget to meet the nutrition-relevant actions targeting health, education, agriculture, climate and humanitarian programs. 

The report also stresses increasing existing national budgets and exploring new mechanisms for including nutrition in national programs for universal health coverage, social protection and financing food systems and climate resilience.

Hunger is expensive
Mainly living in rural areas, over 430 million Africans live in extreme poverty, and 80% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet, stresses the organization. 

The economic impact of malnutrition is high, with between 7 to 16% of repetitions in school resulting from stunting, meaning that these children achieve less in school education. The report details that child malnutrition – especially stunting and underweight – also represents 3 to 16% of the annual GDP.

The economic impact of malnutrition is high, with between 7 to 16% of repetitions in school resulting from stunting.“We must therefore invest in nutrition because adequate nutrition is at the interface for progress in health, education, employment, empowerment of women and reduction of poverty and inequality, and can lay the foundation for peaceful, secure and stable societies,” reads the report.

“Unfortunately, current investments are not comparable to the scale of the nutrition problem. This fact is reflected in the 2020 Global Nutrition Report, which observes that among 48 low-income countries, average government spending on ‘nutritional deficiencies’ is just US$1.87 per person, representing the lowest expenditure for any disease category tracked,” it continues.

Investing in nutrition can generate a US$16 return for each US$1 invested and reducing malnutrition could increase the overall economic productivity and GDP per capita by 11%, argues the report. It further exemplifies that, for 15 countries in Africa meeting the 2025 World Health Assembly target for stunting, US$83 billion would be added to national incomes.  

Result of underinvestment
Measures against malnutrition have been slow and uneven progress resulting from decades of underinvestment. 

The report stresses the need for a holistic approach to be adopted and nutrition must be a priority in development finance by all countries and international organizations. 

Additionally, nutrition-sensitive development investments are essential to complement and support direct nutrition initiatives, reads the report. 

It suggests focusing on investments in natural resources, agriculture, food systems, trade and commerce to improve the availability, such as variety, diversity and quality. Additionally, the focus should be on accessibility, affordability and preparation, consumption and knowledge of nutritious foods.Investing in resilient food systems to be prepared for climate change is also high on the list.

On the other side of the malnutrition spectrum, nutrition education is also being stressed as obesity unawareness is increasing. Recently, studies have presented findings that teenagers in Europe, the US and Zimbabwe all had high obesity unawareness numbers. 

Climate in focus
Investing in resilient food systems to tackle the increased threat of climate change is also high on the list.

“Strategies to respond to climate change through adaptation and mitigation should also consider the impact of climate change on nutrition and explicitly address nutrition in the climate financing agenda.”

Among other external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, climate change drives up food prices as crop production gets destroyed around the globe.

Experts recently warned of climate change’s threat to nutrition security as in June this year, smoke from Canada’s wildfires spread all the way to Norway, and the month was declared the hottest June on record in some parts of the world. 

“There is a relationship between exposure to extreme heat and levels of child stunted growth, which can be linked to malnutrition. The droughts at the horn of Africa played a role in widespread famine and malnutrition,” Dr. Chloe Brimicombe, a climate scientist at Wegener Center, University of Graz, Austria, previously told Nutrition Insight.

By Beatrice Wihlander