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.

FACts and figures, key messages

# The number of people that are chronically undernourished continues to rise in Africa, reaching 250.3 million in 2019: nearly one-fifth of the population. Of these, 15.6 million are in Northern Africa and 234.7 million in sub-Saharan Africa. By this measure, the region is not on track to achieving target 2.1 of Sustainable Development Goal 2

# The number of people affected by severe food insecurity, which is another measure that approximates hunger, shows a similar upward trend. In addition to the severely food insecure, though, a further 426 million people also experience moderate food insecurity, i.e. they typically eat low-quality diets and might have been forced, at times during the year, to also reduce the quantity of food they would normally eat.

# In 2019, 73 million people, 6 million more than in 2018, in 36 countries in Africa, faced acute food insecurity or hunger and required urgent food assistance: 37 million due to conflict, 26 million due to climate shocks, and 10 million due to economic shocks.

# Preliminary estimates indicate that in Africa an additional 25 to 42 million people may be undernourished in 2020 due to the economic recession caused by COVID-19. Furthermore, childhood malnutrition will rise, with perhaps 1.5 million children in sub-Saharan Africa under the age of five suffering from wasting.

# Access is a key determinant of healthy diets. Nearly three-quarter of Africans cannot afford a “healthy diet,” and 51 percent cannot afford a “nutrient adequate” diet. Even an “energy sufficient” diet is beyond the means of 11.3 percent of Africans (where the relevant reference diets are defined in the report).

#For the nearly 430 million Africans that live in extreme poverty, the “energy sufficient” diet costs about 50 percent of their food expenditure budgets. No household living in extreme poverty can afford a “nutrient adequate” or “healthy diet.” In low-income African countries, the energy sufficient diet costs about 56 percent of the food poverty line, and in lower- and upper-middle-income African countries, the share is 64 percent and 70 percent, respectively. The cost of nutrient adequate and healthy diets significantly exceeds the food poverty line.

# Current food production and consumption patterns have hidden health and environmental costs, and if these costs were included in food prices, they would add USD 0.35 to each USD spent on food in sub-Saharan Africa, or 26 percent of the total cost. Rebalancing diets towards a higher content of plant-based foods would lower the full cost (wholesale cost and diet-related health and climate-change costs), of diets by 11 to 21 percent in low-income countries.