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# ANNEX B - THE EXTENT OF CHRONIC HUNGER IN AFRICA

At the heart of any analysis of food policy in Africa is a concern over the welfare of African people who live in a harsh environment, where rainfall is erratic and where several regions have been prone to drought, especially in the past 15 years. Africa's famines in drought or war prone areas such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique, and the Sahel, require emergency respoases and better global preparedness for the future. But these emergency situations, now referred to as "transitory" food insecurity (World Bank 1986a) are different from the issue of chronic hunger or food insecurity, where people suffer from a continuously inadequate diet caused by inability to acquire food.

There are, however, relatively few reliable statistics with which to asses the prevalence and magnitude of _chronic_ hunger in Africa. In Africa and in other developing countries food availabilities are estimated using food balance sheet techniques which estimate availability as a residual, introducing errors which are almost invariably in the direction of understatement. In a thorough analysis of the statistics and methods quantifying nutritional situations, Poleman concluded that "With food availability estimates .hat understated set against requirement figures that overstated, the cards were so stacked that almost all LDCs could be classified as "diet deficit." Redone with truly accurate information, it is probable that few countries would he so classified. Much as the protein gap proved a statistical illusion, the list of diet-deficient countries would be whittled away." (Poleman, p.15) Given the weaknesses in the data, and their likely biases, the case being made about Africa's chronic food problem, that "average daily caloric intake was 96 percent of requirements in the 1980s" seems a remarkably weak basis on which to assert that the "inadequacy of food manifests itself both at a national level and at the household and individual lever (Serageldin).

The principal evidence that may indicate widespread undernutrition comes from dietary and anthropometric studies showing that a large share of children in Sub-Saharan Africa are stunted. Stunting, however, can result from several causes, including diseases which lead to reduced intake of food and impair the metatolism and absorptive capacity of the individual. And there is a growing consensus among nutritionists that both disease and lidernutrition can result in stunting, as weU as child morbidity and mortality. In fact, over the past 20 years the infant and child mortality rates have not dropped more in African countries where aggregate food supplies have increased, than in the countries where food supplies have declined (Svedberg).

In a systematic assessment of available evidence Svedberg (1987) concludes that "there is no firm evidence of widespread and severe undernutrition in the African population at large (p. 87).

But certain patterns observable in Africa seems at odds with tlue o onclusion that "about a quarter of Africa's population ... do not consume enough food to alowv an active working life (World Bank 1988a). The high rate and continuation of rural-urban migration, the growing importation of rice and wheat that in many countries is more costly that domestic cereals, and depressed market prices following abundant harvests suggesting market saturation, are difficult to reconcile with the assertion that in many of these countries 30 to 40 percent of the population are chronicaly "food insecure." However, even with adequate "average" food availabilities, chronic hunger may persist if poverty, income distribution, and other factor prevent certain groups from obtaining enough food. These