Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that food insecurity exists when either physical, social, or economic factors affects a person’s access to nutritious and safe food and affects their ability to live a healthy life. While the concept of food insecurity involves a multitude of complex variables, the statistic most used by the FAO to represent this concept is undernourishment. Specifically, they use the prevalence of undernourishment as a percentage of the total population of a country, with undernourishment referring to continuously low consumption levels of dietary energy. Some of the highest rates in the world – over 40% – are among countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from South Africa and Gabon, who both have rates less than 5%, every single country is considered food insecure. This work focuses on how the sub-Saharan agricultural industry affects food insecurity. I explain undernourishment with a wide-range of factors. I explore correlations with the amount of people living in rural and urban poverty, the total population, and the prevalence of undernourishment. Finally, I take into account how much external assistance exists to agriculture and how much the government spends on agriculture per year