Recently, considerable attention has rightly been paid to the nutritional impact of the sharp hikes in international food prices which took place in 2007-8 and, again, in 2010-11. While sacrosanct, this growing focus has somewhat obscured the effect of other factors which do affect malnutrition...

This paper has a twofold objective: (a) to make a comprehensive review of different approaches to food security; (b) to develop a human development and capability approach to food security following the pioneering works of Amartya Sen and Jean Dréze. To our best knowledge, no paper has yet...

Civil wars often force people to leave their homes. Displaced populations run higher risk in terms of disease, hunger and death, something that is well-documented. They leave their land, cattle and other assets behind for an uncertain existence in a refugee camp or depend on relatives or...

This paper looks at the condition and progress of SSA's agriculture as central to growth, poverty reduction, access to employment income, and food security. Agriculture also greatly affects other major components of SSA's human development.

Given above-average population growth, feeding sub-Saharan Africa’s future population is an important challenge. This paper considers what we know about the relationship between population and food security and what population projections suggest will be the case over the next half century. It...

There is little disagreement about investing in agricultural technology – and the need to reverse the decline experienced over the 1980’s and 1990s – as a priority for improving food security in Africa. Food security is not just about production or supply of food but access. In sub-Saharan...

This paper identifies several positive synergies between social protection programmes and food security outcomes. One function of social protection is to manage and reduce vulnerability, and several instruments are reviewed – weather-indexed insurance, public works programmes, emergency food...

This technical report seeks to understand the impact of improved access to information technology on farmers’ agricultural production and marketing practices in sub-Saharan Africa, with a specific focus on Niger. Related research suggests in that access to mobile telephony can reduce...

Over the past two decades Sub-Saharan African countries have experienced accelerated economic growth. This positive trend represents a huge opportunity to improve the living standards of millions of Africans and foster inclusive and sustainable development. At the regional level however, such...

Abstract: Despite recent improvements in economic performance, undernutrition rates in Africa appear to have improved much less and rather inconsistently across the continent. We examine to what extent there is an empirical linkage between income growth and reductions of child undernutrition in...