Extreme Poverty and Hunger Eradication in Sub-Saharan Africa

Problem Overview

While the world has realized accelerated achievement in reducing extreme poverty over recent decades, poverty and hunger remain a chronic challenge in Africa. The World Bank reports that the global population living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day) declined to a low of 10% by 2015, equivalent to 736 million people living below the poverty line (World Bank, 2018). This significant progress has been disproportionate, with gains recorded mainly in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific. South Asia saw its poor population decline by more than half — from 500 million in 1990 to 216 million in 2015 (FAO, 2018). However, a stark contrast has been reported in Sub-Saharan Africa, where extreme poverty is most concentrated. The Poverty and Shared Prosperity report indicates 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 a growing challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank, 2018). Although Africa experienced two decades of accelerated economic growth, that growth has not been associated with significant poverty reduction. Based on historical growth trends, Sub-Saharan Africa risks up to 87% of its population remaining under extreme poverty in 2030, denied the opportunity to share in global prosperity (World Bank, 2018).

Evidence indicates that the world is off track in realizing the eradication of poverty by 2030. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) signals an alarming trend in world hunger since 2014 as food insecurity becomes increasingly prevalent. The population of people facing chronic food deprivation increased to approximately 821 million by 2017. Statistics indicate that 21% (256 million) of Africa's population is undernourished (FAO, 2018a). The declining agricultural productivity challenge is compounded by Africa's rising poverty. Africa faces a potential decline of up to 50% in crop yield productivity by 2020 and up to 90% in crop revenue by 2100, severely affecting the livelihoods of millions of people (ECA & FAO, 2018). Africa has remained reliant on food imports to meet its food deficit. As Suttie (2017) notes, Africa's aggregate annual food import bill is estimated to increase to US$110 billion by 2025 from the current US$35 billion. The economic growth realized in the continent has not produced expansionary employment, with over 60% of the working population engaged in vulnerable employment (United Nations & Economic Commission for Africa, 2017). The continent has failed to enjoy the benefits of its growth since it is mainly driven by a commodity price boom — an unsustainable pathway for rapid economic development (AfDB, 2019).

Poor households are overwhelmingly concentrated in rural areas. Approximately 78% of the world's 736 million poor people live in rural areas, while 63% of the world's poor work in the rural agriculture sector, which is characterized by poor public and private infrastructure investment (World Bank, 2015; FAO, 2018b). The rural population in Africa continues to increase, placing further strain on the continent's already severely degraded land resources (Suttie, 2017). This population is geographically concentrated in marginal and disaster-prone rural areas characterized by insufficient basic infrastructure (water, electricity, health, education), low population densities, and limited market access. Reversing the increasing poverty levels in Africa will therefore require that most interventions be focused on the rural setting.

Historical Analysis

The pace of poverty and hunger reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa accelerated in the late 20th century and slowed in the 21st century. The world made substantial progress between 1990 and 2015 following the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals. During that period, global poverty declined by half, while hunger and poverty in the developing world declined by 15% and 21%, respectively. However, the decline was uneven, with low-income countries still reporting 28% and 48% hunger and poverty prevalence by 2010. Poverty and hunger are concentrated in low-income countries that have experienced degrowth or growth stagnation. Countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Malawi, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Togo, and Rwanda reported 50–70% prevalence of extreme poverty (FAO, 2019). In such countries, development aid has remained a critical safety net and illustrates the complexity of eradicating poverty and hunger in Africa.

The Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition report by the UN indicates an increasing prevalence of hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa that is reversing progress on poverty eradication (ECA & FAO, 2018). The world recorded an increase in the undernourished population to 10.9% (821 million) in 2017, up from 10.5% (784 million) in 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for the greatest increase in undernourishment, recording a high of 237 million undernourished people in 2017.

This negative trend has been perpetuated by a combination of global economic recession, climate change, and civil conflict. The African Development Bank notes that widespread poverty in Africa is triggered by food insecurity. Lower levels of prevailing development increase the region's vulnerability to climate change. The region is already experiencing weather variability — such as the 2015–16 El Niño event, which left Southern Africa in catastrophic drought and caused devastating flooding in East Africa, intensifying food insecurity (ECA & FAO, 2018). The 2015–16 El Niño left over 10 million people in Ethiopia in need of food assistance and caused a 13.6% decline in agricultural GDP.

Hunger and poverty are strongly interlinked for the extreme poor, reinforcing an intergenerational transfer of deprivation. Poverty denies people access to basic services such as healthcare, which would facilitate adequate nutrition and reduce hunger. Conversely, hunger perpetuates low labor productivity and extreme poverty by limiting families' capacity for investment, sustaining the poverty trap (FAO, 2018b). Hunger and poverty also have a temporal dimension in which people lifted out of poverty remain at risk of falling back. Sudden shocks such as drought, illness, or job loss may cause individuals not previously considered poor to descend into poverty (FAO, 2018).

Social, Economic, and Political Analysis

Drivers of rural poverty can be classified along three dimensions: economic, social, and political (Addae-Korankye, 2014). Agriculture is the backbone of the rural economy in Africa, accounting for 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 GDP, the reverse is true in Sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture contributes the highest proportion of GDP yet attracts comparatively little investment. Agricultural productivity in Africa has increased only marginally. The FAO notes that while Asia and Latin America have managed to increase yields to more than 3 metric tons per hectare, Africa has realized an increase of only 1 metric ton per hectare over the last 40 years — despite having twice the arable land. Furthermore, agriculture remains predominantly rain-fed, with irrigated land accounting for only 5% of cultivated area, compared to a global rate of 21% and an Asian rate of 41% (Economic Commission for Africa, 2017). This dismal land productivity results from the missed opportunity of a green revolution that would have modernized the agricultural sector (Suttie, 2017). While governments in Asia increased investments in agriculture in the late 20th century, many African governments reduced agricultural investment, with some countries reporting fiscal allocations of less than 5% to the sector (Suttie, 2017).

Research demonstrates that investment in rural agriculture is five times more effective at reducing both hunger and poverty compared to investment in other sectors, yet such investment remains limited. Rural Sub-Saharan Africa lacks key infrastructure such as irrigation systems, transport networks, electricity, and storage facilities, all of which constrain rural productivity and act as a disincentive to private investment. Fewer than 40% of Africa's rural population live within reach of all-weather roads, which raises the cost of agricultural production significantly. Rural poverty has also been reinforced by market volatility. Fluctuations in international commodity prices — for tea, coffee, and horticulture, for example — directly affect the income of rural households. The rural economy is further hampered by inadequate integration into national and international markets due to insufficient infrastructural and institutional linkages, which limits both physical market access and the flow of information that would allow farmers to respond positively to economic shocks.

The persistence of cultural and social deficiencies that reinforce "cultural poverty" remains a challenge in Africa (Addae-Korankye, 2014). A consequence of the patriarchal social structure is a high proportion of women trapped in poverty. Exclusion of segments of society from social, political, and economic institutions produces a vicious cycle of limited capability (Handley et al., 2009). Persistent gender inequalities fostered by tradition limit women's access to productive assets and resources. Discrimination, social exclusion, and marginalization intensify the constraints women face. Customary laws governing property ownership, access to communal resources, and inheritance rights curtail women's productive opportunities. It is not uncommon for widowed women to lose property and face social marginalization, which subsequently denies their children basic rights such as access to quality education (FAO, 2018).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, women account for more than 50% of the agricultural labor force, yet they represent less than 20% of all agricultural landholders (World Bank, 2015). USAID (2015) reports that women own only 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. Women also remain underrepresented in political institutions across Africa. Early and forced marriage in rural Africa denies girls access to quality education, thereby reducing the overall productivity of rural communities. As a result, women are forced into the informal sector, limiting their ability to escape the poverty trap. Notwithstanding these barriers, interventions targeting rural women have been identified as yielding higher welfare effects for their families and communities (FAO, 2018).

Political structures that perpetuate rights abuses, violence, poor access to basic services such as water, health, and education, as well as conflict and vulnerability shocks, reinforce the forces that sustain poverty. Weak institutional and governance environments limit livelihood opportunities for citizens and increase their vulnerabilities, constraining their ability to break free from poverty (Handley et al., 2009). The prevailing poor record on poverty reduction in Africa is associated with political systems that limit transformational change. Handley et al. (2009) describe African political systems as "hybrid states" characterized by zero-sum politics, concentration of power among a minority, private appropriation of public resources, bloated public bureaucracies, weak distinction between private and public spheres, nepotism, rights abuses, and poor governance. They further note that a vast portion of Africa's political culture is anchored in tribalism, regionalism, and religion. Such neopatrimonial political systems leave development decisions in the hands of informal networks of influential individuals, which derails the provision of public goods such as electricity, mobile networks, and healthcare. This political environment has left parts of the continent in a "resource curse" in which resource-endowed states remain trapped in poverty due to resource mismanagement (Handley et al., 2009). Policy failure driven by ineffective governance has been identified as a prime driver of poverty in resource-abundant countries, with macro and trade policies adopted across the continent exerting a disproportionately negative effect on the agricultural sector.

Poverty and hunger are highly concentrated in conflict-affected countries. Poverty has a twofold relationship with conflict: it can be both a cause and a consequence. Multiple African states have experienced repeated cycles of conflict induced by dysfunctional political systems, reversing positive progress toward poverty reduction. Civil conflict aggravates food insecurity because mass displacement of people from food-producing areas reduces agricultural output. Conflict forces people from their farms as they seek refuge, and simultaneously destroys infrastructure, imperiling the agricultural supply chain. Food prices then rise, which can intensify conflict further. Decades of failed governance inducing conflict and terrorism in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Nigeria are estimated to have pushed 20 million people into famine, with over 1.4 million children in those four countries at risk of death. Conflicts also divert public resources from productive use, which exacerbates poverty (Breisinger, Ecker, & Francois, 2015).