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Food security improvements in sub-Saharan Africa have been marginal
The situation with food insecurity remains bleak in Africa. This is after the release of IFPRI's 2008 Global Hunger Index that shows that the eight worst off countries from a food insecurity situation are in Africa. The country with the worst situation is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) followed by Eritrea, Burundi, Niger, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia and Chad. What is even more worrying is that the DRC food insecurity has worsened by 57% with Swaziland (32%) and Burundi (17%) also showing a worsening situation.
What is even more worrying is that the index is a reflection of data up until 2006. Consequently, the dramatic impacts of the global economy, increasing petrol and food prices, climatic changes and the continuation of conflicts on the continent have not been incorporated into the index. What is interesting to note is that Zimambwe's food security was better than that of Tanzania and Mozambique in 2006 but is showing a 17% increase in food insecurity. The question is - with Zimambwe's economy in free fall in the last two years, how bad has the situation become there?
The story is not all bleak for Africa. Between 1990 and 2006 Egypt reduced its hunger index score by 50% followed by Ghana with 40%. The countries that have shown marked improvements in their food insecurity have done so through rapidly growing their agricultural production. Other African countries that have made good progress in addressing their food insecurity situations with a improvements of more than 10% include Angola, Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique. Spatial information is critical in showing that suitability of land in Africa for agricultural development and the extent to which this land is being effectively used for this purpose already.
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 Africa worst levels of malnutrition
30 May 2008
How bad is the malnutrition situation in Africa? According to UNICEF it is estimated that 120,000 children have less than one month to live in Ethiopia. Several countries in central and western Africa face similar levels of malnutrition as Ethiopia. Some of the interventions that can be implemented to fight malnutrition include appropriate complementary feeding, exclusive breastfeeding, feeding of sick children, women’s nutrition, vitamin A supplements, anaemia reduction, and consumption of iodized salt. Fortification of food is a key intervention and can include the fortification of oil, wheat, and maize flour.
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 Sahel and East Africa have high vulnerability regions
March 2008
Areas of the Sahel and parts of East Africa are some of the most vulnerable in Africa. To do these vulnerability analyses requires access to high resolution data which is not always available. Baseline data is needed to improve targeting of the neediest areas and prioritising the implementation of programmes. The research argues that targeted local approaches and interventions to climate change and vulnerability is needed. Collaboration is needed to collect the required data.
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 Land use classification of Quickbird imagery in Zambia
17 June 2007
A project focusing on the Magodi area of Zambia showed that a combination of principal component analysis and vegetation indices provided the most accurate classification of land use. The research shows the use of error matrices and Kappa statistics to calculate the accuracy of the classification. It also includes the use of randomly sampled reference data points in testing the accuracy of the classification.
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 Poverty mapping approaches - much still to do
2003
This publication by the FAO provides a very good overview of poverty mapping and the methods presently being used to produce them. What it also emphasises is that there is still much to learn and do in improving poverty mapping methods. Various methods can be used but it is very dependent on many factors including the objectives of the exercise, philosophical views, data availability, analytical capability and costs.
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About us
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The Human Sciences Research Council's (HSRC) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Centre and EIS-AFRICA have decided that it is imperative to develop a geo-information research portal that will ensure the establishment of a forum for a vigorous engagement by African researchers. It is AGIRN's mission to be the premier knowledge portal for Africa's Geoinformation researchers, practitioners and decision-makers where research papers, project findings and policy guidelines to enrich policy debate are published and accessed and to support decision-making through the use of appropriate web-based technologies.
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