2022 Forman Lecture: The AU’s Minata Samaté Cessouma on Africa’s current and future nutrition challenges

In an era of global uncertainties, including high food prices, political instability, and growing climate impacts, Africa faces unique challenges compared to other regions of the world. It must feed and nourish its young, expanding population while sustainably transforming its agriculture and food systems for the future. These are the issues that H.E. Ambassador Minata Samaté Cessouma, the African Union (AU) Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs, and Social Development, addressed in delivering IFPRI’s 32nd annual Martin J. Forman Memorial Lecture on December 12, 2022.

“These challenges, ladies and gentlemen, call for urgent action from all of us … we have to achieve what is necessary to shift our current outlook on nutrition,” she told the online audience.

The Forman lecture, focused on the future of nutrition research and policymaking, celebrates Martin J. Forman’s contributions to global nutrition as former head of nutrition at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for more than 20 years, which include establishing the United Nations Subcommittee on Nutrition. Dr. Forman’s son Kenan, sister, and other family members participated in the online event.

“Local and global food systems across the African continent have faced a tumultuous few years as countries mitigated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic difficulties arising from the global food crisis sparked by the Ukraine conflict, and the ever-present effects of climate change,” said Johan Swinnen, IFPRI Director General and CGIAR Managing Director, Systems Transformation, introducing the lecture.

African organizations have launched a wave of ambitious initiatives in recent years to address hunger and malnutrition, Ambassador Samaté noted—including the 2014 Malabo Declaration, which aims to end hunger by 2025, among other goals; the 2016 Africa Health Strategy; the Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard, launched in 2019, which rates individual countries on various nutrition criteria and aims to build advocacy and accountability; and the comprehensive development strategy Agenda 2063. Most recently, the AU declared 2022 its Year of Nutrition—the main topic of the lecture.

Yet Africa faces immediate nutrition problems. “More than one third of undernourished people in the world live in Africa—that’s a lot—we have 282 million in 2020, an increase of 46 million compared to 2019,” Ambassador Samaté said. In addition, healthy diets remain out of reach for many: “In 2019, around 3 billion people [globally] were unable to afford a healthy diet, of which one out of three lives in Africa,” she said. The double burden of malnutrition is a growing problem; undernutrition, including stunting, wasting, and anemia, persists, while overweight and obesity are rising in many African countries.

These issues require immediate attention, she said, given their severe impacts on health and society: “Malnutrition is a significant contributing factor to the delay in economic and social development in Africa, with unacceptable human consequences for individuals, communities, and our nations.”

Climate change poses growing threats to agriculture, nutrition, and public health that also require action, said Ambassador Samaté, a native of Burkina Faso. “Climate change-related shocks in Africa are huge … I come from the Sahel; we have droughts, and then we have floods, which damage everything: crops, livelihoods, infrastructure.” Alone, Africa cannot do the job of reducing the challenges to nutrition caused by climate change, she stressed.

The recent COP27 global climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, which established a global loss and damage fund to pay those low-income countries disproportionately hit by climate impacts, was an important forum for African countries, Ambassador Samaté said. “It was also an occasion for African countries to launch some new initiatives. We talked about the link between climate change and food security, and about establishing initiatives on climate action and nutrition and on climate-related funding and nutrition.”

Addressing many of these issues requires that African countries make strategic investments, she said, integrating nutrition objectives across government programs. This includes health, agricultural production of more nutritious foods, and fertilizer production—which is particularly important since the Russia-Ukraine war has disrupted global fertilizer markets.

More broadly, global instability remains a significant problem that drives inequality between rich and poor, with impacts of poverty and malnutrition falling disproportionately on children and on women and girls. “We encourage our members to think socially … given this compounding disruption, and to recognize the generational impact of nutrition across multiple sectors ranging from health to education and economic growth,” she said.

Ambassador Samaté concluded her speech with a Zimbabwean proverb: “‘You cannot tell a hungry child that you gave him food yesterday.’ Yesterday was yesterday. We need action now.”

In the question-and-answer session, Ambassador Samaté noted the importance of youth participation in nutrition and agriculture initiatives. It’s not just that youth are “the future” in Africa, she said, young people are, in effect, the present, the majority “we cannot work without.” She also stressed the importance of school feeding programs in supporting diets for many children, particularly girls.

Addressing these challenges depends on individual countries, Ambassador Samaté said. Under Agenda 2063, countries are urged to devote 10% of national spending annually to agriculture and rural development, for instance—but they must proactively pursue that goal. “I invite all of you, especially Africans, to engage your government. We said we need 10% of budget for agriculture—I don't know how many countries are doing it … but we also need our members to commit to increasing their budgets for agriculture and for nutrition.”