(Ecofin Agency) - From 2000 and 2016, malnutrition rate in seven African nations decreased by 40-50%. This is according to a report released, by the Panel Malabo Montpellier which regroups 17 African and European experts, on the sidelines of the Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) 2017. The report is entitled “Food: How can Africa build for itself a malnutrition-free future?”.

The report which is based on the global hunger index (GHI) over the period reviewed says the countries concerned are Senegal (-56%), Ghana (-54%), Rwanda (-53%), Angola (-43%), Cameroon (-43%), Ethiopia (-43%) and Togo (-42%).

The nations’ performance occurs amid a particularly sour global context (a 28% increase in the number of people suffering from hunger from 1990 to 2015) and is mainly to be attributed to institutional but also programmatic reforms.

In this regard, among the most remarkable initiatives that helped the fantastic seven achieve this performance there is for example, in Senegal, the creation of Anti-malnutrition cell (CLM) in 2001 and the nutrition improvement programme launched in 2002.

As for Ghana which was ranked in 2008 among the 36 countries worldwide to have the highest rates of chronic child malnutrition, Panel Malabo Montpellier said in its report that the country has made a lot of progress since, integrating nutrition in its governmental policies.  

Indeed, this allowed the country to reduce child stunting rate from 43% to 25% between 2009 and 2012 and become the first African country to halve its number of people suffering from hunger in 2015.

There is also Angola whose performances in terms of nutrition, the report attributes to political stability recorded since the end of civil war in 2002 and a multisector approach to fight malnutrition. This include coordination, by the ministry of agriculture, of the national food security and nutrition strategy (NFSNS), as well as the health ministry’s involvement in the nutrition sector.  

Espoir Olodo