YOU DISPOSE LEFTOVERS, SOME LACK JUST A BIT FOR MERE SUSTENANCE

A bloated tummy is a sign of malnutrition. African
ministries made a pledge during the African Union
summit to end hunger in the continent by 2025.

Earlier this month, away from the shadows of the G-8
and distinctly apart from its power and profile, African
nations quietly entered a pact to make history.
At the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
African ministers made a pledge to end hunger in the
continent by 2025. They agreed on a raft of measures,
from national policies to dedicated funding, with a hope and promise of unleashing an agriculture revolution Africa has desperately waited for decades without much success.

Through the Addis Declaration, African nations have
committed to opening their doors to import ideas from
countries like Brazil, China and Vietnam, which have successfully tackled hunger. The summit also highlighted the need to share and learn from the progress made within Africa — in countries like Ethiopia, Niger and Malawi, where a number of community-based interventions have shown great results in addressing hunger and malnutrition.

The summit, jointly convened by the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization , has made a sincere attempt
in acknowledging the complex dynamics of hunger underlining its links with malnutrition and recognising the role of women who make 70 percent of the agricultural workforce in Africa, and young people in the continent who can widen the use of technology in boosting production.
For a continent that has chronically battled hunger — and where 240 million people, that is nearly one out of every four persons, are food insecure and where undernutrition is directly or indirectly responsible hundreds of thousands of child deaths every year — it is only too easy to dismiss this as yet another promise that is most likely to fail.

Yet, despite the huge burden of the languishing initiatives and unmet commitments, there is a wave of confidence sweeping Africa today. From Ouagadougou to Addis Ababa, cities, suburbs, small towns and villages are experiencing a rapid transformation fuelled by an unprecedented growth in economy and wealth across African nations. According to the World Bank , growth in Africa has been widespread, with more than a third of countries posting annual growth rates of at least 6 percent in 2012 and another 40 percent growing between 4 and 6 percent.

Even in the most impoverished of places, the economic
activity has remained strong. There may not be enough
food accessible to many, but mobile phone signals
have reached the remotest of communities and selling
cellular top-up cards has become a huge industry. The
largely young population across Africa is driving the economic activity to new heights. Despite its crises, Africa is undergoing a phenomenal transition. The future may still be unsure, but one thing becoming increasingly certain: The growing confidence among African nations. It is this sentiment that can prove pivotal in how Africa can join up together to address its most critical issues, beginning with hunger and malnutrition.

Africa is the only region in the world that has seen
hunger numbers grow since 1990. The impact of this is
not just restricted to a huge human cost but also includes an enormous economic burden. Hunger and undernutrition is estimated to generate costs of up to
11 percent to Africa’s public system. Mortality rate due
to undernutrition has reduced the current workforce by
up to eight percent and cumulative losses associated
with undernutrition are said to represent between 2 and
16 percent of the GDP in African countries. It is now being widely acknowledged that to end hunger in Africa or almost anywhere in the world, it will not be enough to simply increase the production of food.

Access to food requires more than just availability.
There is a need to address the many inter-connected
factors that keep people from being food secure,
including malnutrition, poverty and persistent social
and economic inequalities.

A significant milestone of the Addis declaration is
opening the hunger challenge to non-state actors such
as the farmers’ bodies, private sector, civil society and
academia, to widen the search for effective solutions.
There are already some examples of innovation and
new approach. Plan International has successfully
piloted community-based methods to tackle hunger
and malnutrition in several places in Africa.
In the Sahel, Plan has used micro-finance groups of
women such as the Village Savings and Loans

Associations to make the food accessible in times of
need and to prevent malnutrition. The benefits extend
far beyond just mitigating hunger such as it can allow
children to stay at school; it can prevent children from
being forced into labour; and it can prevent girls
becoming child brides as in many cases parents tend to
marry girls early during drought periods to reduce their
food burden.

Strong political leadership is a critical requirement in
ending hunger. Brazil’s success story of ending hunger
— shared at the summit by former president Lula
himself, is an example of how unwavering political
commitment and leadership Is fundamental to ending
hunger. A few countries in Africa have already made
significant progress. FAO has recognized 11 African
nations for meeting internationally agreed targets for
halving the population of hungry people well before the
2015 deadline established by the Millennium
Development Goals. The “End Hunger in Africa” summit
has set the scene for African governments to widen this
progress to cover the rest of the continent, and
eventually end hunger by 2025.

So, despite doubts and concerns, and a legacy of
unmet promises, there is still hope for action in the
African continent. Never before have African nations
enjoyed such economic strength and confidence to
make change happen. The governments must now
match it with political commitment and action. They
must seize this chance to end hunger in Africa.