UNDP REPORT LISTS CAUSES OF FOOD SCARCITY IN AFRICA

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) asaid in its annual Africa Human Development Report that while drought and crop failure often trigger food crises in Africa, the actual causes of food insecurity goes much deeper.

The UN agency said in its 2012 report entitled: Towards a Food Secure Future- launched yesterday in Abuja, that factors such as low agricultural productivity, which curtails the availability of food, leading to trade imbalances and a reliance on imports and humanitarian aid and persistent, wide-spread, and extreme poverty which makes getting enough food unaffordable and markets inaccessible for poor people.

The report also said almost half the population in sub-Saharan Africa continues to live on under US$ 1.25 per day; and little policy focus on the importance of nutrition, which enables wide-spread and chronic malnutrition to persist.