Hunger Level Falls In Nigeria, Remains Alarming In Africa- IFPRI Report

Hunger level in Nigeria has fallen
in the last eight years, but has
remained at an “alarming” level
in Africa, a new global report
released Monday, said.
The report, published by the
International Food Policy Research
Institute, IFPRI, showed that
Nigeria’s index dropped from 16.3
in 2005 to 15 in 2013. Safe and
comfortable levels are below five.
Burundi has the highest at 38.
The report identifies Africa
generally among other regions
with a high level of hunger which,
it says is alarming.
This is contained in the 2013
Global Hunger Index (GHI)
released by IFPRI,
Welthungerhilfe, and Concern
Worldwide.
The report said global hunger is
decreasing as the 2013 World
Global Hunger Index score has
fallen by 34 per cent from the
1990 GHI score.
However, world hunger still
remains serious, with 19 countries
suffering from levels of hunger
that are either alarming or
extremely alarming, it adds.
South Asia has the highest
regional GHI score, followed by
sub Saharan Africa, while Burundi,
Eritrea and Comoros have the
highest levels of hunger, the
report states.
The report said most of the
affected countries were
vulnerable to the negative effects
of extreme weather events,
climate change, population
pressure, conflicts and economic
crises.
Also, traditional coping
mechanisms as well as the
capacity of governments were in
many cases, hugely challenged, it
said.
The report however, called for
greater resilience-building efforts
to boost food and nutrition
security in the regions
.
The resilience-building, it stated,
should include prevention,
mitigation and the promotion of
development paths that would
reduce exposure to shocks from
climate change among others, in
the longer term.
“Adopting a resilience lens is
challenging. We need to build
consensus on what it means and
on that basis adopt programmes
and policies that bridge the relief
and development sectors,” said
IFPRI’s Derek Headey in the
report.
The report noted that
collaboration in building
resilience required new and
better efforts to monitor and
evaluate people’s existing
vulnerabilities and the impacts of
resilience-building activities.
Also, Dominic MacSorley of Concern
Worldwide explained that building
such resilience must focus on those
living in life-threatening poverty and
that programmes must deliver
sustainable change in a longer term.
“We must focus on those living in
extreme poverty, learn the lessons of
the past and be clear about what
measures are needed to enable the
very poorest to become more
resilient in the longer term,” he said.
“Work in Kenya, Ethiopia, Niger and
Chad is demonstrating how a
resilience approach can deliver
significant and sustainable change at
community level.
“Turning this evidence into policy
change is the next important step.”
The report further suggested
developing a high-frequency
surveillance system for the most
vulnerable regions, focusing on
communities as well as individual
and household resilience.
In addition, it said: “resilience-
building objectives should be
incorporated into national and
regional development strategies as
something distinct from
conventional growth, poverty, or
development objectives.
“Pursuing this will improve food and
nutrition security for the world’s
most vulnerable.”
According to the report, the Index
identified hunger levels and hot
spots across 120 developing
countries and countries in
transition.
It scored countries based on three
equally weighted indicators — the
proportion of people who are
undernourished, proportion of
children under five who are
underweight and the mortality rate
of children under five.
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