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The Nairobian

Research synergy key for climate-nutrition action

Opinion

By Lynet Otieno | Feb 08, 2025

**Roda Ogake a paw paw farmer checks some of her fruits at her Riosiri home in Kisii County**. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

As a child in the mid-90s, while adjusting to life in semi-arid lands back home, the reality of food insecurity hit hard. We had been forced out of a place of plenty, with milk and fruits, vegetables and variety of starch, to a land of abundant love but scarce food.

The idea of unpredictable meal patterns was unfathomable, until we lived it. Yet this was the norm for many a family, for whom a meal a day would just be fine. We would only meet milk in tea, at an unfair ratio of roughly one to 10 cups of water. Fruits were largely wishes, sometimes appearing in lullabies, especially bananas, as reward for good manners. I remember queuing for relief food, once. It had been raining, and there was plenty of grain in farms, but not dry enough to be harvested. All this was nothing compared to the suffering of families in other arid and semi-arid lands that lose livestock to famine every time drought prolongs. As if a curse, drought always precedes deadly floods, and any surviving livestock swept, driving communities deeper into poverty. Others in flood-prone areas are displaced, sometimes by landslides, and their farming around lakes, hills and rivers rendered useless.

The extreme weather events dwindle crop yields, reduce livestock productivity, besides worsening hunger and malnutrition. These trends are replicated in many African countries, amid geopolitics and climate denial. But the images of emaciated women, children and the aged that splash news channels during famine are only evidence of the intersection of climate and nutrition.

In June 2024, a global UNICEF report said up to 64 million children in Africa, suffered “severe child food poverty”, with a high likelihood of experiencing “wasting”, described as a “life-threatening form of malnutrition”.

Africa represent 14 of the 2024 Global Hunger Index’ 20 least food secure countries globally of the 136 assessed. They include South Sudan, Burundi, Somalia, Chad, Madagascar, DRC, Niger, Liberia, Central Africa Republic, Sierra Leon, Zambia, Guinea-Bissau, Sudan and Nigeria, starting with the worst hunger-stricken. The 2024 FAO Regional Conference for Africa established that “nearly 282 million people” in Africa were undernourished in 2022”. Africa’s food import bill was also projected to rise by $90 billion by 2030, amid deepening debt situations and extreme weather.

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Cognizant of the fact that a significant portion of Africa’s population depends on rain-fed agriculture, policy-driven research-backed solutions must be increased to improve and replicate strategies that work to tackle food shortage, rising food prices, and rampant malnutrition. Effects of climate-induced food insecurity on nutrition, especially among children and pregnant women, necessitates urgent solutions to tackle declining agricultural productivity. Linking climate action with food and nutrition security is therefore inevitable. And there is really no straight line to addressing the nutrition problem. Climate-Smart Agriculture policies have worked in Kenya, while Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme also safeguards food security for vulnerable populations. This is why solid data is necessary, to enable formulation of targeted solutions.

For instance, a CGIAR Climate Security Observatory shows how climate change affects crop-nutrient composition, and in effect food quality and human health. Another by APHRC shows the place of urbanisation and climate change in African cities’ food systems.

Such insights need political goodwill and policy backing for appropriate action. This also means strengthening policy and research synergy, besides cross-border agreements and collaboration. The collaboration must incorporate civil society organisations, donor agencies, and private-sector for ease of resource mobilisation, even as eyes turn to the international community for pledged climate finance.

The writer champions climate justice. [email protected]