10
insecurity intensifies because of poor public responses, more households adopt damaging
and irreversible coping strategies such as selling or mortgaging assets and livestock, or
borrowing at high interest rates using their land and future harvest as collaterals. In this case,
the impact of surges in food prices does not always cause an immediate rise in malnutrition,
but can have catastrophic consequences in later years, as coping mechanisms become more
limited and family assets cannot be fully restored immediately and long term food
production is hampered by lack of productive assets and credit.
All this suggests that the three types of food crises are closely interconnected and that
piecemeal responses to each of them may generate only limited benefits, An integrated
policy response to malnutrition and food security is thus in order. Of course, this is a tall order
and lack of resources may limit the actions of governments in this regard. Yet, the
formulation of an integrated policy response – even if implemented only gradually – is the
only solution to the longstanding problem of food insecurity and child malnutrition still
besetting important segments of the African society.
3. Background: structural features and food in-security in Niger and Malawi
Why focusing on Niger and Malawi?
Niger and Malawi are two small Least Developed Countries which – while differing in a
number of respects (climate, soils, population density, religion, colonial tradition, and types
of crops grown) – share several structural characteristics which make them representative of
SSA countries facing major problems in the field of chronic, seasonal and acute food
insecurity and malnutrition. Both are landlocked, neighbour larger and richer countries
(Nigeria and Zambia/Zimbabwe), have a very low Gross Net Income per capita and level of
human development, and recorded stagnation in GNI/capita during the last 20 years (Table
2). Both employ 80 percent of the workforce in low-input smallholder subsistence agriculture,
suffer from growing scarcity of farmable land and loss of soil fertility, and depend for their
food security on food aid and unstable regional markets dominated by a few large countries.
Both have recently introduced a democratic rule
11
receive substantial inflows of foreign aid
and have benefitted from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program.
In both countries, the average calories consumption per capita is around 2100 (ten percent
lower than SSA’s average), which means that an important proportion of the population has
a food intake below the recommended norm and is food-short during the lean season every
year, and that seasonal and year to year variations in food availability do affect the incidence
of low birth weights and proportion of moderate and severe wasting among children (ibid).
In turn, at between 40 and 50 percent, chronic malnutrition reaches some of the highest
11
In Niger, after a series of military regimes which placed considerable attention to national food security,
President Tandja came to power in 1999 following 'fair and free elections'. However, democracy did not ensure –
as argued by Amartya Sen – the avoidance of famines. Indeed President Tandja of the MNSD Party (whose election
was supported by the country’s powerful millet wholesalers) consistently denied the gravity of the 2005 food crisis
and responded to it late. As he later on tried to modify the Constitution so as to be elected for a third term, he
was deposed in February 2010 by a benevolent military junta which – inter alia - responded quickly to the food
crisis of 2010 and organized new elections which brought to power in April 2011 President Issoufu of the main
opposition party. In Malawi the political scene was dominated for long (1964-1994) by Dr. Banda a self-appointed
dictator who was defeated in 1994 by President Muluzi. Since then, Malawi has enjoyed a democratic regime
which has placed food security at the centre of its policy agenda. Despite this, and despite the important role plaid
by the government in the food market, the country did not escape two food crises in 2002 and 2008/9 (section 6).
11
levels in the world, while health status remains precarious, as suggested by the values of their
LEB and U5MR.
Table 2 - Structural features and food security in Niger and Malawi
(2009 or averages for last few years)
Niger
Malawi
SSA average
A. Structural characteristics
Population (mn.)
15.3
15.3
840 (total)
Population density
10.5
126.9
34
Population growth rate (%)
4.1
3.2
2.8
Distance from nearest harbor
1040
1020
n.a.
GNI/capita (US$)
340
280
1147
GDP/c 1990-09 growth rate
-0.2
0.5
1.8
Adult literacy (%)
29
73
63
Primary net enrolment rate
38
91
65
Secondary net enrolment rate
7-11
25
28-32
Ratio of income share top 20% to
that of bottom 40%
3.1
2.5
4.2
% poor (GNI/day<1.25 US$)
66
74
53
ODA as % of GNI
13
22
4
B. Agriculture
% Rural population
83
81
57
Farmable land /capita
0.98
0.23
0.24
Fertilizer consumption (kg/ha)
0.43
41.7
11.62
% labor force in agriculture
82.9
79.1
58.4
% landless/land-short farmers
2-3
2
n.a.
C. food security
Calories availability/c
2145
2107
2370
% of calories covered by main
cereal staple
85
(millet-sorghum)
90
(maize)
Av Cereal Imports/Total Cons
0.13
0.14
0.27
% food aid in total consumpt.
2.8
3.7
3.0
D. Nutritional and health
LBW
27
13
14
% wasted children
- moderate and severe
- severe
34-41
11
15-21
3-4
22-27
7
% stunted children
46
53
42
Per/cap. health expenditure ($)
16
17
80
Life expectancy
52
54
53
U5MR
160
110
129
Source: authors’ compilation on the basis of Unicef’s ChildInfo, Googlemaps, World Bank,
FAO
Country features
Niger is a vast and mostly flat Saharan country of 1.267.000 square kilometres with a
population of 15.3 million in 2009 (Table 2, Figure 3). Islam is the dominant religion.
Population density is low (10.5 people per square Km) but three quarters of the country are
uninhabitable or can be used only for raising cattle. As a result, population density in the
settled Southern areas is much higher and land scarcity acute. In addition, at 4.1 percent,
population growth is among the three highest in the world, as the national fertility rate
reaches 7.5 (8.7 in the comparatively fertile Southern regions bordering Nigeria, areas 5 and 6
in Figure 1 inhabited by the polygamous, sedentary and numerically dominant Hausa (DHS