African governments and development partners have significant concerns about the state of food insecurity across the continent. In the last six years, indicators of food insecurity undernourishment of the population and stunting among children under five years old, have deteriorated. The third Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) biennial review report released in February 2022 revealed that only one country, Kenya, out of the fifty-five African Union (AU) Member States was on track to meet the CAADP goal of ending hunger by 2025. Statistics from other organizations give a similar picture: the 2022 report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (indicated that one in five people in Africa (20.2%) faced hunger in 2021.

These estimates have increased by millions due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The conflict resulted in reduced wheat exports to Africa, which imports most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Indeed, bolstering Africa’s food security is of concern to the United States, and comprises a piece of the US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa. With Africa’s population set to double by 2050, the time is now to make the right investments to spur sustainable agricultural transformation in order to feed the estimated 2.4 billion people.

This publication assesses the state of food security in Africa and provide recommendations for strengthening the US-Africa partnership to build resilient food systems in Africa.

This paper is part of the US-Africa Leaders Summit series. The full series is available to read here. 

The Brown Capital Management Africa Forum is a premier platform for substantive and solutions-oriented dialogue on key trade, investment, and sustainable development issues in Africa, and in US-Africa relations. Launched in 2015, the Africa Forum conducts research on key development issues and provides a high-level platform for convening Africa, US, and international business leaders, policymakers and subject matter experts in forward-leaning policy-oriented dialogue aimed at advancing sustainable development in Africa and fostering mutually beneficial economic relations between Africa and the United States. The Brown Capital Management Africa Forum is made possible by the generous financial support of Brown Capital Management, LLC (Baltimore, Maryland).