Food & Nutrition Security: a key cross cutting issue to deliver on the EU Africa partnership

At the up coming EU AU Summit, nutrition must be prioritised as a key lever of sustainable development, in line with existing priorities of the African Union To make progress towards Sustainable Development Goals, and ensure a sustainable partnership between the continents, it is essential to improve food and nutrition security in Africa.

Malnutrition and food insecurity remain significant challenges in Africa According to the 2021 State of Food Security and Nutrition report, 282 million people in Africa are undernourished which represents one third of the world’s undernourished Africa has also the highest prevalence of food insecurity with 60 percent of the population of Africa 799 million people) affected by moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020. “If recent trends persist, the distribution of hunger in the world will change substantially, making Africa the region with the highest number of undernourished individuals in 2030". Moreover, Africa is the only region in the world where the number of children under five with chronic malnutrition is increasing rising from 54 4 million to 61 4 million children between 2000 and 2020. Africa also experiences a high level of wasting 12 1 million children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition.