Food Insecurity in the Horn of Africa

More than 40 percent of the population in the Horn of Africa (HoA) is undernourished and millions are food insecure. Those suffering most from food insecurity are subsistence farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists whose livelihoods largely depend on agriculture and animal production. The interagency Taskforce on the UN Response to Long-Term Food Security, Agricultural Development and Other Related Aspects in the HoA, that was established by Kofi Anan in 2001, identified natural hazards (especially drought or the lack of resilience to it), conflict (both armed conflict and resource based) and population growth (putting an ever greater pressure on natural resources) as the main underlying causes of food insecurity, adding to other complex factors specific to the region.