Nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa: A sub-regional perspective - ASC Research Seminar (Fourth in a series of four on health issues in Africa)

Dr Maarten Nubé has a PhD in clinical nutrition from Leiden University and is now working as a nutritionist at the Centre for World Food Studies at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. The Centre is engaged in scientific research regarding worldwide food policy issues to support long-term national and international policies related to agriculture and economic development. The focus of his own research is the relationship between poverty and under-nutrition in developing countries. In the past he worked in various developing countries on food and nutrition planning assignments.

In comparison with other developing regions in the world, reductions in under-nutrition prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa have been slow over the past decades. Yet, there are important differences between countries and between sub-regions in Sub-Saharan Africa. With respect to nutrition, the poorest conditions are observed in East Africa and in the Sahelian countries, while nutritional conditions are relatively better in the coastal countries of West Africa and in Southern Africa. An explorative analysis has been made of sub-regional differences in Sub-Saharan Africa regarding agroclimatic conditions, trends in food production and availability, the occurrences of disasters (both natural as well as manmade), dependency on food aid, the spread of diseases (malaria, AIDS), and how these factors relate to developments with respect to nutrition and health. In the last few decades, the year-to-year variability in climatic conditions and food production has been large, in particular in Southern Africa, while food production conditions appear to have been more stable in West Africa, including the Sahel.