Food Security in the Horn of Africa
Food Security in the Horn of Africa
This article is part of work in progress, written for the Institute for Environmental Security (IES) by Selamawit Zewdu (selamawit_zewdu@yahoo.com) and edited by Eric van de Giessen (ericvandegiessen@envirosecurity.org). It is written as part of IES' Environmental Security for Poverty Alleviation Programme, which is supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The full Environmental Security Assessment for the Horn of Africa will be published early 2010. Comments to this section are highly welcomed.
Introduction
Food insecurity is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a situation in which people lack secure access to a sufficient amount of safe and nutritious food. The Horn of Africa is one of the most food insecure regions in the world. In the region as a whole, about 40% of the population is chronically undernourished. Currently (2008-2009) more than 20 million people are subject to acute food insecurity in the region, four million of whom are children under the age of five years[1]
Figure 1: People affected by acute food insecurity (estimate WFP, 2009)[2]
The Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates are reported to be above emergency thresholds, reaching as high as 20 % in parts of Somalia and 25 % in parts of Sudan[3] The most affected people are pastoralists, subsistence farmers, refugees, internally displaced people and urban poor who already live on the margins of survival due to conflict, displacement and chronic poverty.
| 1 | Chronic food insecurity threatens lives of children in the Horn of Africa, 2009 |
| 2 | Source WFP 2009 http://www.wfp.org/countries |
| Source population figures: CIA, World Fact book 2009 | |
| 3 | WFP 2009 |
| http://www.wfp.org/countries/sudan |