AFRICA Regional overview of food security and nutrition 2021: Statistics and trends

1.2 Prevalence of food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale

The Food Insecurity Experience Scale- (FIES) based prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity is an estimate of the proportion of the population facing moderate or severe constraints on their ability to obtain sufficient food over the course of a year. People face moderate food insecurity when they are uncertain of their ability to obtain food and have been forced to reduce, at times over the year, the quality and/or quantity of food they consume due to lack of money or other resources. Severe food insecurity means that individuals have likely run out of food, experienced hunger and, at the most extreme, have gone for days without eating, putting their health and well-being at serious risk.

The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity within the population in Africa has, similarly to the PoU, risen over the 2014–2020 period (Figure 5). Although obtained using different data and methods, the prevalence of severe food insecurity is conceptually comparable to the PoU, and the estimates for the two indicators are similar at the continental level. At the subregional level, the two indicators are also close, but the PoU estimates indicate lower levels of hunger for Western Africa, and in particular, Southern Africa.

The prevalence of severe food insecurity is highest in Central Africa (35.8 percent), but for moderate food insecurity the prevalence is higher in Eastern and Western Africa (36.6 and 39.5 percent, respectively) (Table 3 and Figure 5). The latter two subregions account for 71 percent of the moderately food insecure on the continent.

More than one-quarter of the population of Africa, or 346.6 million people, suffer from severe food insecurity, with Central, Eastern and Western Africa worst affected (Figure 6 and Table 4). An additional 33.7 percent, or 452.2 million people (Table 5), suffer from moderate food insecurity (Figure 7 and Table 5).

Country level data for the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity is available for most, but not all countries (Figure 8). In nearly all cases for which two sets of observations are available, the food security situation deteriorated between 2014–2016 and 2018–2020.