Challenges of the food, fertilizer and fuel price crisis in West and Central Africa

1
Challenges of the food, fertilizer and fuel price
crisis in West and Central Africa

• Interagency Meeting
• 7 October 2008
• Dakar

2
High Food Prices in West Africa

• In West-Africa recent sharp increases in food,
  fertilizer and fuel prices pose a serious threat
  to an already fragile situation in terms of food
  and nutrition security.
• Social implications of rising food prices have
  resulted in riots and demonstrations in Burkina
  Faso, Cameroon, Cote dIvoire, Mauritania,
  Senegal and Niger.

3
Macroeconomic impact

• Budgetary impact of increased food and fuel
  subsidies, tax exemptions, etc (for 2008, IMF)
• Benin 1.5 of GDP
• Burkina Faso 1.3 of GDP
• Guinea-Bissau 10 of tax revenue
• Mali 1.8 of GDP
• Reduction in growth, due to higher fuel prices
  and fiscal adjustment ? increase in unemployment
  and underemployment?
• Risk of reduction in public expenditure on basic
  social services

4
(No Transcript)
5
What is the impact on households?

• Impact on monetary poverty
• Impact on household expenditure substitution
  effects
• Nutritional impacts
• Agriculture impact
• Possible impacts on education, use of health
  services and child labour

6
Impact on monetary poverty
Ex-ante simulation of the impact of rice prices
on the poverty headcount in Liberia World Bank,
2007. Based on CWIQ data
7
Impact on household expenditure substitution
effects

• Liberia Greater Monrovia (Source Liberia Joint
  Survey on the Impact of high prices)
• Burkina Faso. In Ouaga and Bobo , for the very
  poor
• Reduction in protein consumption
• Increased buying of street food as opposed to
  buying .
• Substitution towards filling foods.

8
Impacts on education and health

• Liberia
• In Burkina (Ouaga and Bobo) increase in drop out
  rates due to manque de moyens, drop in
  attendance.

9
Nutritional impacts

• Prevalence of Acute Malnutrition in children
  6-59m in Mauritania

10
Challenges and Opportunities

• Strengthening the evidence base
• Data
• Analysis
• Bridging current emergency activities with
  long-term development programmes.
• Strengthening the agriculture supply response
• Strengthening the social protection system
• Improving coordination between
• Governments
• Regional Economic Communities
• International Agencies.