Building resilience and enhancing nutrition in Africa’s food systems

Abstract

They are being challenged by a ‘cascade of crises’. These include conflict, (near and distant), human pandemics, pests and diseases of crops and livestock, the risk of financial instability due to national debt crises, and environmental stresses. Some threats are set to intensify in the decades ahead: this report asserts that whatever the expectation of future delivery of Nationally Determined Contributions, it would be prudent for African food systems to be strengthened to be resilient not just to 1.5°C warming, but to at least two degrees (above pre-industrial levels).i The assertion that the 21st century may be entering an ‘age of disruption’ is of particular relevance to African countries where small-scale farming dominates.