Abstract: The second in a series of Hunger Project papers discusses the current status, causes, and possible remedies of famine in sub-Saharan Africa. This area represents the only region of the world where food production per capita has declined during the past 20 years, where approximately 150 million people are malnourished. Two widely discussed theories have been offered to explain the decline in good production: the theory of underdevelopment, the theory of comparative advantage. However, these theories (and policies based on them) have serious limitations. Environmental constraints to developing agricultural strategies for agricultural development promotion in Africa also are discussed. The weakness of food aid as a long-term benefit is described. A special report on food deficits in sub-Saharan Africa as of 1984 and a map of Africa also are included. (wz).

Dramatic increases in food prices, as witnessed on a global scale in recent years, threaten the food security of hundreds of millions of the rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. This book focuses on recent food and financial crises as they have affected Africa, illustrating the problems using country case studies, that cover their origins, effects on agriculture and rural poverty, their underlying factors and making recommendations as to how such crises could best be addressed in the future.

Most contributions reflect an evolution of thinking during the 1990s.

Chapters collected in this book were all delivered at an NRI/IFPRI symposium on critical food policy issues for sub- Saharan Africa held in 1993. The symposium brought together specialists on food policy from a number of organizations to discuss current research, future research agendas and policy issues and decisions. The main issues arising from discussions were how individuals respond to incentives, the effects of technology and technology policy, the fiscal crisis of the sub- Saharan African state and its effect on agriculture, and the search for effective means to support civil society.

"This paper uses data from national household expenditure surveys to explore whether food insecurity is more severe in South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa. It employs two indicators of the diet quantity dimension of food insecurity, or the inability to access sufficient food: the prevalence of food energy deficiency and the prevalence of severe food energy deficiency. It also employs two indicators of the diet quality dimension, indicating lack of access to nutritious food: the prevalence of low diet diversity and the percent of energy from staple foods. It finds the regions' food energy deficiency prevalences to be quite close (51 percent in South Asia, 57 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa). However, the prevalence of severe food energy deficiency, which is more life threatening, is higher in Sub-Saharan Africa (51 percent versus 35 percent in South Asia). From a diet quality standpoint, the regions appear to suffer from a comparable and high reliance on staple foods in the diet to the neglect of foods rich in protein and micronutrients, but that Sub-Saharan Africa may be doing worse, as reflected in less diverse diets. The results confirm that both regions suffer from deep food insecurity problems but point to Sub-Saharan Africa as the region with the more severe problem, particularly when it comes to the diet quantity dimension of food insecurity. In deciding which region should be given greater emphasis in the international allocation of scarce development resources, the fact that the numbers of people affected by food insecurity are higher in South Asia should be taken into consideration."IFPRI web site