Writing Contest
Background Statistics
A Full Food Basket for Africa by 2020
Tell Us Your Vision for Achieving this Goal
- About 200 million people on the African continent are malnourished. Their numbers have increased by 15 percent since the early 1990s and virtually doubled since the late 1960s.
- More than 95 percent of malnourished people in Africa reside in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- More than 40 million people require food aid due to the food crises currently gripping the African continent.
- More than 80 percent of all Africans live on a daily income of less than US$2 a day; nearly half struggle to survive on US$1 a day or less.
- One-third of Sub-Saharan Africa's preschool children are malnourished, with their numbers increasing by more than 75 percent since the early 1970s to 33 million.
- Micronutrient malnutrition-the lack of essential vitamins and minerals for a healthy life-is pervasive.
- 20 percent of Africa's population is affected by goiter, a disease caused by insufficient iodine in the diet, and another 48 percent are at risk.
- Anemia affects 46 percent of Africa's population, much of it due to iron deficiency. Anemia impairs physical growth, mental development, and learning capacity in children and adolescents.
- About 36 million preschool children in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer from Vitamin-A deficiency, which can lead to blindness, growth retardation, and reproductive disorders.
- Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world that experienced a substantial increase in the number of malnourished children and adults in the past 30 years. IFPRI projections suggest that by 2020, the number of malnourished children in Sub-Saharan Africa could reach 39 million, if governments and donors within and outside Africa continue current policies ("business as usual").
- If, however, policymakers only modestly increase their investments on roads, irrigation, clean water, education, and agriculture, the number of malnourished children could drop by nearly half to 22 million from the 39 million expected with "business as usual".
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