By: Othmane Semlali
West Africa- Around 40 million people living in West Africa and the Sahel region are at risk of being hit hard by famine, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Agriculture (FAO).
If no action is taken, in the very near future, to improve the food and nutritional situation in West Africa and the Sahel, already considered “worrying”, nearly 40 million people could fall under the influence famine, warns the FAO.
It is explained that the food and nutritional crisis that is befalling this part of the Continent is attributable to a multitude of factors, starting with the general increase in the prices of basic foodstuffs, which directly affects the ability to purchase households, thus affecting the most vulnerable categories.
An upward trend felt directly on the price of local cereals (+40%), as well as on imported products such as wheat (+20%) and oil.
We also point to the harmful impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine, given that these two countries are major producers and exporters of wheat, as well as several other basic products.
This means that the persistence of this crisis and the situation of uncertainty that it continues to fuel, casts real doubt on the real capacity of world markets to meet the food needs of populations in the four corners of the world. .
Another risk factor for the amplification of the food crisis in West Africa and the Sahel would lie in the situation of security instability in particular, with the resurgence of violence and attacks by armed groups in West Africa. and in the Sahel and more specifically, in the area known as the three borders: Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. A chaotic security situation also in several areas of northwestern and central Nigeria.
With reference to the statistics of the Regional System for the Prevention and Management of Food Crises (PREGEC), it should be noted that the total cereal production (maize, rice, millet, sorghum, fonio and wheat) envisaged in the Sahel and in the countries of West Africa for the 2021-2022 crop year is 73.3 million tons.
However, “this production is already down by 1.8% compared to last year for all the countries, but this remains particularly marked in the Sahel, where cereal production has decreased by 11% compared to the five-year average”, explains the FAO, which deplores a downward trend that could extend over the years to come.
Along the same lines, a study conducted jointly by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the FAO and the World Food Program (WFP) unfortunately confirms this diminishing trend.
According to this study, production projections for the years 2022 and 2023 show a net deficit for certain basic products compared to the average over the period 2017-2020.
What steps should be taken to remedy the situation?
Faced with the decline in production, and in order to cope with this situation in the affected areas, the FAO regional office for West Africa and the Sahel has set up a crisis exit strategy.
It is with this in mind that the UN organization is planning better support for the countries concerned by enabling them to diversify food supplies and sources of imports, while helping them to proceed, in the immediate future, with a reorientation of part of the financial resources available to increase support for the most vulnerable households, in this case: people in a situation of food insecurity and internally displaced persons.
Also in the wake of this commitment, the FAO is working to develop a “solid” mechanism for the group purchase of fertilizers at the level of port and road corridors in the ECOWAS region, by mobilizing large local producers to respond to requests from blenders and fertilizer importers.
In the short and medium terms, the FAO plans to encourage governments to relaunch the development of agricultural value chains, with a view to increasing local production and thus achieving food sovereignty.
With regard to livestock and fisheries, the FAO suggests the development of value chains, in order to reduce the dependence of West African and Sahelian countries vis-à-vis foreign countries. , while strengthening the adoption and digitalization of agriculture.
FAO also plans to support ECOWAS and governments in order to lay the foundations for regional trade in agro-food products, as planned by the African Union within the framework of the free exchange.
In figures, the implementation of these strategies will require an overall budgetary envelope ranging from 300 to 600 million dollars.
By way of conclusion, it would be wise to consider that the Russian-Ukrainian war, far from the concerns and uncertainties that it may have generated on the international level, could, all the same, be perceived by a resilient Africa rich in potentialities. , as an opportunity to develop sustainable agriculture, capable of enabling the Continent to achieve its “food sovereignty” and to consolidate its position, in the future, on the international scene as a leading exporter of products agricultural.