المستخلص: |
Africa suffers from the problem of nutrition in general, which can be attributed to many factors, among them are natural factors such as drought, desertification, deterioration of soil quality and condition, or human factors such as severe shortages of agricultural potentials and infrastructure, which is reflected to the low magnitude and quality of agricultural productivity. The world’s hungry population is approximately 925 Million, representing the Near East and North Africa (37 million), 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 239 million in Sub-Saharan Africa and 578 million in Asia and the Pacific. From 1990 to 2010, in Sub-Saharan Africa, weight shortage has decreased by 12% (from 24% to 21%), stunting has decreased by only 5% (from 43% to 41%) and wasting has actually increased by 6% (from 9% to almost 10%). These trends represent a striking paradox in terms of developmental outcomes, and questions the links between macroeconomic growth and nutrition. Of the top 20 Countries with the highest prevalence of stunting, 9 are in Africa, 10 are in Asia, and 1 is in the Middle East (Yemen). Of the 36 countries with the highest burden of stunting amongst children less than two years of age, 21 are in Africa and most of those have a prevalence of 40% or more Children stunted. The food problem in Africa is not only in the absence of natural resources but in mismanagement and lack of material resources, that continent, which has more than 60% of arable land in the world, is truly the world food basket, but the continent needs to take a lot of action, such as (creating a continent›s agricultural conglomerate, human resources management, promoting agricultural investment, mitigating environmental risks).
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