Hunger Eradication and Extreme Poverty

Extreme Poverty and Hunger Eradication 7 I. Problem Overview While the world has realized accelerated achievement in reducing extreme poverty over the last decades, poverty and hunger remain a chronic challenge in Africa. The Work Bank reports a decline in the global population living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day) plunged to a low of 10% by 2015 which is equivalent to 736 million living below the poverty line (World Bank, 2018). The significant progress has been disproportionate, with the progress mainly recorded in South Asia, East Asia, and Pacific.

South Asia has realized a decline of the poor population by more than a half from 500 million in 1990 to 216 million people in 2015 (FAO, 2018). However, a stark difference has been reported in Sub-Sahara Africa where extreme poverty is concentrated. The Poverty and Shared Prosperity report indicate an increase in the population living in extreme poverty from 278 million in 1990 to 413 million (41% of the population) in 2015 demonstrating that poverty is an increasing challenge in Sub-Sahara Africa. (World Bank, 2018).

Although African has experienced two decades of accelerated economic growth, the growth has not been associated with significant poverty reduction. Based on the historical growth trend, Sub Saharan Africa risk up to 87% of the population remaining under extreme poverty 2030 and denied the opportunity to share the globally shared prosperity ((World Bank, 2018). Evidence indicates that the world is off the track in realizing eradication of poverty by 2030. Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) indicates an alarming trend in word hunger trends in world hunger since 2014 as food insecurity becomes prevalent.

The population of people facing chronic food deprivation increased to approximately 821 million by 2017. The statistics indicate 21% (256 million) of Africa population as undernourished (FAO, 2018a). The declining agricultural productivity challenge is compounded by Africa’s rising poverty challenge. Africa faces a potential up to 50% decline in crop yield productivity by 2020 and up to 90 % crop revenue decline by 2100 severing affecting the live hood of millions of people (ECA & FAO, 2018). Africa has remained reliant on food imports to meet food deficit.

As Suttie (2017) indicates, Africa’s aggregate annual food import bill is estimated to increase to US$110 billion by 2025 from the current US$35billion. The increase in economic growth realized in the continent has not realized expansionary employment impact with over 60% of the working population engaging in vulnerable employment (United Nations & Economic Commission for Africa, 2017). The continent has failed to enjoy the benefits of the expansionary growth since it’s mainly driven by the commodity price boom which is an unsustainable pathway for rapid economic growth (AFdB, 2019).

Poor households are overwhelmingly concentrated in rural areas. Approximately, 78 % of the world 736 million poor people live in rural areas while 63% of the world poor work in the rural agriculture sector characterized with poor public and private in infrastructure investment (World Bank, 2015; FAO, 2018b). The rural population in Africa continues to increase constraining the already severely degraded land resources in the continent (Suttie 2017). The population is geographically concentrated in marginal and disaster-prone rural areas characterized by insufficient basic infrastructures (water, electricity, health education), low densities and limited market access.

To revert the increasing poverty levels in Africa, most of the impact will emerge from activities in the rural setting. ii. Historical Analysis The pace of poverty and hunger reduction in Sub Sahara Africa picked in the 20th century and subdued in the 21st century. The world made substantial progress between the 1990 and 2015 following the setting of the Millennium Development Goals. In the 1990 – 2015 period global poverty declined by half, while hunger and poverty declined by 15% and 21% in the developing world.

However, the decline had been uneven with the low-income countries still reporting 28% and 48% hunger and poverty prevalence by 2010. Poverty and hunger in concentrated in low-income countries that have mainly reported degrowth or growth stagnation. Countries such as DRC Congo, Burundi, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Central Africa Republic, Mozambique, Togo and Rwanda reporting 50-70% prevalence of extreme poverty (FAO, 209). In such countries, development aid had remained a profound safety net and demonstrate the complexity of eradicating poverty and hunger in Africa.

Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition report by the UN indicates an increasing prevalence of hunger in Sub Sahara Africa which reverts the progress realized in poverty eradication (ECA & FAO, 2018). The world recorded an increase in the population of undernourished people to 10.9 % (821 million) in 2017 from 10.5 % (784) in 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for the greatest increase in undernourishment recording a high of 237 million undernourished people in 2017. Figure 1; Source: FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO. 2017.The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017.

Building resilience for peace and food security. Rome, FAO. The negative trend in the continent has been perpetuated by a combination of the global economic recession, climate change, and civil conflicts. The Africa Development Bank notes that the widespread poverty in Africa is triggered by food insecurity. Lower levels of prevailing development in Africa increases the region's vulnerability to climate change.

The region is already experiencing weather variabilities such as the 2015–16 El Niño that left the Southern Africa region in catastrophic drought and devastating flooding in Easter Africa which increased the danger of food insecurity (ECA & FAO, 2018). The 2015–16 El Niño left over 10 million people in Ethiopia in need of food and a 13.6% decline in agriculture GDP. Hunger and poverty are strongly interlinked for the extreme poor reinforcing an intergenerational transfer of poverty.

While on one hand poverty denies people access to basic services such as health care that would facilitate adequate use of food and result in hunger, hunger, on the other hand, perpetuates low labor productivity and extreme poverty by limiting family focus on investment for intergenerational transfer sustaining the poverty trap ((FAO, 2018b). Hunger and poverty have a temporal dimension where people pulled out of people risk falling back into the poverty trap.

For example, sudden shocks such as drought, illness, job loss may cause a fall into poverty for individuals previously not considered as poor (FAO 2018). iii. Social, economic and Political Analysis Drivers of rural poverty can be classified into triple dimensions; economic, social and political factors (Addae-Korankye, 2014). Agriculture is the backbone of the rural economy in Africa accounting to 90% of household income for the rural population.

While the share of investment in agriculture in developed countries remains higher relative to the sector's contribution to the GDP, the reverse is prevalent in Sub Sahara Africa where agriculture sector contributes the highest proportion GDP but attracts less investment. Agriculture productivity in Africa has increased at a marginal rate in Africa.

FAO notes that while Asia and Latin America have managed to increase yields to more than 3 metric tons per hectare, Africa has only realized an increase to 1 metric ton per hectare over the last 40 years despite Africa having twice arable land. Moreover, Agriculture remains rain fed with the proportion of irrigated land remains low at 5% compared to the global rate of 21% and Asian rate of 41% (Economic Commission for Africa, 2017). The dismal land productivity results from the missed green revolution opportunity of modernizing agriculture sector (Suttie,2017).

While governments in Asia increased investments in the Agriculture sector in the late 20th century, African governments reduced agriculture investment with some countries reporting less than 5% of the fiscal allocations (Suttie, 2017). Additionally, research demonstrates that investment in rural agriculture is five times more effective in minimizing both hunger and poverty compared to other sectors, investment in rural agriculture remains limited. Rural Sub Sahara Africa lags behind by poor key infrastructures such as irrigation systems, transport network, electricity and storage facilities that constrain rural productivity.

The poor rural infrastructure is a disincentive to investments. Less than 40 % of the African rural population live within all-weather accessible roads which increases the cost of agricultural production. Prevalence of poverty in rural SSA has been reinforced by market volatility. Volatility in international market prices of commodities such as tea, coffee, and horticulture affects the income of rural households. Moreover, the rural economy is hardly integrated into the national and international markets due to inadequate infrastructural and institutional linkages.

The lack of interlinkages limits the physical access of markets as well as information access that would enable the farmers to positively respond to economic shocks. Persistence of cultural and social deficiencies that reinforces “cultural poverty” remains a challenge in Africa. (Addae-Korankye, 2014). A consequence of the African patriarchal society is evident in the high population of women who remain trapped in poverty. Exclusion of a section of the society from social, political and economic institutions results in a vicious cycle of limited capability (Handley, et al., 2009).

Persistent gender-inequalities fostered by traditions limits access to productive assets and resources. Persistent discrimination or women, social exclusion and marginalization increase the constraints that women face reinforcing gender poverty. Profoundly, the traditional culture is associated with weak property rights for woman. For example, customary laws linked to property ownership, access to communal resources and inheritance rights curtail women of productive opportunities.

It’s not uncommon for widowed women to lose property and experience social marginalization which subsequently denies their children of basic rights such as the right to quality education (FAO 2018). In Sub-Saharan Africa, women account for more than 50% of the agriculture labor force, yet they account for less than 20% of all agricultural holders (World Bank, 2015). USAID (2015) reports that women own 5%, 11% and 17% of documented land in Niger, Tanzania, and Malawi respectively.

Women are less likely to own land, farm machinery, farming technology, productive inputs or financial instruments that would improve farm productivity. Further, women remain underrepresented in the political arena in Africa. Early and forced girl’s marriage in rural Africa denies girls the opportunity to access quality education decreasing the productivity of the rural communities. Consequently, women are forced into informal sectors limiting their ability to break out of the poverty trap.

Notwithstanding interventions in rural women has been identified to yield higher welfare effect on their families and communities (FAO 2018). Political structures that perpetuate the abuse of rights, violence, poor access to basics such as water, health, education and shelter, conflict and vulnerability shocks reinforce the poverty forces. Weak institutional and governance environments confer citizens limited livelihood opportunities and increase the citizen's vulnerabilities limiting them the ability to break off the chains of poverty (Handley, et al., 2009).

The prevailing dismal poverty-reduction record in Africa is associated with Africa’s political systems that limit transformational change. Handley, et al. (2009) refers the Africa political systems as “hybrid states” characterized by zero-sum politics, the concentration of power to minority, private appropriation of public resources, public bureaucracies, the weak distinction between private and public spheres, nepotism, abuse of rights and poor governance. Handley, et al. (2009) notes that a vast of Africa state political culture is anchored on tribalism, regionalism, and religion.

Such neopatrimonialism political systems leave development decision in the hands of informal networks of influential people. Such a political system derails the development of public goods such as electricity, mobile network or healthcare. The political system has left the continent in the “resource curse “phenomenon where due to resource mismanagement, resource-endowed states remain trapped in poverty (Handley, et al., 2009). Policy failure due to the ineffective system has been identified as the prime driver of poverty in resource abundant countries.

The macro and trade policies adopted in the continent had a disproportionate effect on the agriculture sector. Poverty and hunger are highly concentrated in conflict-torn countries. Poverty has a twofold linkage with conflict; causal and consequence effect. Multiple African states have experienced repeated cycles of conflict-induced by the political systems reversing positive progress towards poverty reduction. Civil conflict aggravates food insecurity since the mass displacement of people from food producing areas reduces food production.

Conflicts displace people from their farms as they seek refuge while conflicts destroy infrastructure which imperils the agricultural food chain. Subsequently, food prices increase which aggravates conflicts further. Decades of failed governance inducing conflict and terrorism in four countries; South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria is estimated to force 20 million people into famine with over 1.4 million children in the four countries at risk of death. Further conflicts divert public resources from productive use which exacerbates poverty (Breisinger, Ecker, & Francois, 2015). Iv.

Policy Considerations & Recommendations Statistics projects pessimistic picture for Africa’s opportunity of poverty eradication by 2030 given the regions per capita GDP growth. The World Bank indicates that even when the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa reported an 8% annual growth rate, the poverty rates would remain high (13.4%) while the rest of the world reports a near zero (0.4%) poverty rates. Therefore, realizing hunger and poverty eradication will require a multidimensional approach.

East Asia’s experience of escaping the poverty trap was characterized by structural transformation characterized by an agricultural shift from subsistence farming to market-oriented framing, demographic transition, the advancement of service and industrial sectors, reduction of share agricultural employment and declining share of agriculture in GDP (FAO 2018). The structural change to foster pro-poor investments and economic growth is the first step towards eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in Africa. Substantial increase in income for the rural poor is fundamental in eradicating rural poverty.

The prevailing average income of the extremely poor in Africa is less than $1.25 per day that would need to double. While agriculture remains the backbone of the rural economy, diversification into other non-agricultural generating activities is instrumental in cushioning the rural households from agricultural economic shocks. FAO (2018) projects that structural transformation to foster rural development would require an annual investment of US$265 between 2016-2030. While 198 billion would be spent on investments that promote inclusive production presenting income-generating activities, USD 67 billion would be used for social protection.

Adaptive technological strategies that respond to the rural obstacles would increase rural productivity and resilience to external shocks. FAO (2018) notes that 59% of rural Africa faces climate change shocks which increases their poverty vulnerabilities, hence the adoption of climate-smart agriculture technologies would ensure adaptation and mitigation against the economic losses from climate change shocks (ECA & FAO, 2018). However, the noninclusive structural transformation could derail the process of transformation as evident in Latin America compared to South East Asia.

Equitable resource distribution in East Asia fostered through investment in education, land reforms and small-scale farmer’s productivity yielded a dynamic agricultural sector (FAO,2018). Additionally, the structural transformation will not yield transformative change without social protection among the poorest. Instruments of social protection include social assistance and cash transfers to vulnerable to eliminate fundamental constraints among poor households. Regular cash transfers to the marginalized for example enables increased saving and investment generating higher future incomes and fostering intergenerational wealth transfer.

Impact analysis of cash transfers by FAO and UNICEF demonstrates a broad range of positive economic and social impacts. For.