Home to around 1.5bn people, approximately one-sixth of the world’s population, Africa’s importance in the global economy is growing. But, since the turn of the century, the continent has been faced with several shocks that have arisen largely beyond its borders.
More than 280mn people are going hungry in Africa, as fallout from climate change and the war in Ukraine deepen the region’s insecurity.
“Africa is facing a food crisis of unprecedented proportions,” the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program, the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa has warned in a report. “After a long period of improvement between 2000 and 2010, hunger has worsened substantially and most of this deterioration occurred between 2019 and 2022.”
The report estimated that the number of undernourished people in Africa increased by 57mn since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
An estimated 868mn Africans were moderately or severely food insecure, with more than a third of that number in the second group, according to the report. In addition, 78% of Africa’s population cannot afford a healthy diet, compared to around half at a global level.
The number of people unable to meet their minimum food consumption needs in South Africa is expected to marginally decline to just under one in two by 2025, according to the World Data Lab.
The firm, which conducted research for Shoprite Holdings Ltd’s food index, estimates that 49% of South Africans will be food insecure in two years’ time, down from 52% at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The worsening food security situation make it imperative for countries to “to step up their efforts if they are to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition by 2030,” the UN report said.
“The call for greater action remains true in view of the projected lower rate of economic growth, high general and food price inflation, and raising borrowing costs on domestic and international markets since 2022.”
Surging food prices in the aftermath Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have caused a cost of living crisis across Africa, while heavy borrowing costs are raising the risk of default.
The average debt ratio in sub-Saharan Africa has almost doubled in just a decade; from 30% of GDP at the end of 2013 to almost 60% of GDP by end-2022, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Repaying this debt has also become much costlier.
The IMF estimates that more than half of Africa’s low-income countries either face a high risk of debt distress or are already experiencing it.
In some countries, more than 40% of the state budget goes to servicing the debt: An unsustainable level in countries that need to maintain basic public services such as water and electricity.
In a wider sense, some of the things that went wrong for Africa — including the pandemic and global inflation — are not its fault. But poor decisions as money was flowing in when commodity prices were high, and gorging on cheap borrowing that become unsustainably expensive amid raising interest rates, are home-grown problems.
The UN projects that by 2050, Africa’s population will reach close to 2.5bn. Such a figure would mean that more than 25% of the world’s population will be African.
Looking ahead, Africa will remain by far the largest source of growth globally: Its share of the world’s population is set to reach close to 40% by the end of the century.
For the world economy to grow faster as a whole, Africa would need to find a way to employ these workers productively and capitalise on its demographic dividend.
“We cannot have a prosperous world unless we also have stable and prosperous Africa,” according to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.