Publications

Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) is a coalition of women farmers’ associations and groups across Nigeria. It was started with the support of ActionAid Nigeria in August 2012 to advocate for and support women farmers, especially those in rural areas, to spur rural village economic development and increase food production.

Since the end of French colonisation in 1956, successive Tunisian governments have managed to ensure access to healthy and sufficient food for the vast majority of its citizens.

If global poverty had a face, it would be a woman’s. Women account for half of the world’s population, but 70 percent of its poor (UNDP, 1995). In 1978, Dianne Pearce coined the term “feminisation of poverty” to indicate that women experience poverty at rates that are disproportionately higher than those of men.

Like many other African nations, Kenya is looking at its agricultural sector as a base from which to grow the economy and boost foreign exchange earnings while attempting to reduce food insecurity.

Since the relocation of German Lutheran farmers to Cape Town in 1885 to assist with food provision for the growing settlement, the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) has been the breadbasket of Cape Town.

Despite claims of a vibrant democracy in South Africa, validated by one of the most progressive rights-based constitutions in the world, widespread hunger and malnutrition persist in the country, marked by child stunting, lack of dietary diversity, increased vulnerability to disease and an obesity epidemic.

Like most countries of the global South, Morocco is disproportionately affected by the climate crisis relative to how much it contributed to creating it. Although Morocco contributes only 0.18 percent to global greenhouse-gas emissions each year, current predictions of its future feature increased temperature, decreased rain regularity, sea-level rise and a feedback effect on both forest-cover and fish populations.

Million Belay is the coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa. For more than two decades, he has immersed himself in issues of sustainable agriculture and the rights of local communities to seed- and food-sovereignty. Perspectives spoke to him about the specific challenges of food security on the continent.

Africa is a continent rich in land, fisheries, natural resources and biocultural diversity, all of which are critical assets for a well-functioning food system. Despite this, Africans remain some of the most food-insecure citizens on the planet.