Sierra Leone is working to transform its food system, but it faces mounting challenges

One of the most pressing issues facing humanity is the need to transform food systems to become more equitable, environmentally sustainable, able to deliver healthy diets for all, and also more resilient to disruptions.

With the threat of climate chaos everywhere, and global disruptions such as Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine fresh on our minds, developing food systems that can keep nutritious food moving from farm to consumer, regardless of what is happening in politics, climate or the economy, is vital.

The need to create more resilient food systems was front and centre at the COP28 conference in Dubai last November, which included a political declaration on sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems and climate action. Another COP28 announcement that illustrates how important these topics have become was the creation of the Alliance of Champions for Food Systems Transformation (ACF).

The ACF is a coalition of countries that aims to take a “whole of government” approach to drive systemic change across five key outcomes: food and nutrition security, equity and livelihoods, adaptation and resilience, mitigation and nature, and biodiversity.

Building such a movement involves breaking traditional silos that keep policymakers, industry and academics apart. For the past year I have been working with the international Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition to help achieve these goals. Out of this global effort, Sierra Leone has emerged as a fascinating case study.

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The case of Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone, which is a co-chair of the ACF, has been working to address food security issues since at least 2018, when President Julius Maada Bio launched the Feed Salone initiative.

Feed Salone is aimed at boosting agriculture productivity, fuelling economic growth, decreasing dependence on imports and reducing hunger. The initiative provides multiple opportunities on which to build a food system that can deliver sustainable, healthy diets and is buttressed by a new Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security.

These developments reflect the Sierra Leone government’s prioritization of transforming its food systems and highlight an opportunity for foreign aid donors such as Canada to build on existing food security programming, ensuring a match between their support and Africa’s ambitions to have more resilient, equitable and sustainable food systems.

Food and nutrition challenges

This focus on food systems is well-justified. Sierra Leone, like many other African nations, faces growing challenges to its food and nutrition security as a result of various threats. An increasingly volatile world is disrupting essential supply chains, which is particularly concerning since 80 per cent of foodstuffs consumed in the country were imported as of 2020. Persistent inflation and a mounting African debt crisis further threaten imports.

As a result, Sierra Leone is similar to a number of African nations in that it is seeking to increase domestic production. But these efforts are hampered by intensifying climate change and declining soil fertility, the latter driven in part by land degradation and deforestation.

These crises threaten the vision of universal access to sustainable and healthy diets. Healthy, resilient and sustainable food systems have knock-on benefits for economic development by improving the livelihoods of the 60 per cent of the population involved in food production.

Food systems transformation will also boost the productivity of the workforce and reduce the degradation of the natural environment. A strong and resilient food system is an essential foundation on which Sierra Leone’s, and all of Africa’s, future rests.

Hard-won gains at stake

Providing food and nutrition security remains a substantial challenge. An estimated 82 per cent of Sierra Leone’s population are food insecure, and inflation hovers around 47 per cent. This has exacerbated the vulnerability of many citizens.

Some progress has been made over the past 20 years, particularly in breastfeeding rates (54 per cent in 2021 compared with three per cent in 2000) reductions in stunting (26 per cent in 2021 compared with 45 per cent in 2005) and decreases in wasting (four per cent in 2021 compared with 10 per cent in 2005). However, 48 per cent of women still suffer from anemia and the under-five mortality rate was approximately 10.5 per cent in 2021. These hard-won gains face an uncertain future.

Now is the time to act

Recent data published by the UN paints a grim picture. Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise all over Africa. Climate change, conflict and geopolitical instability threaten to make matters worse.

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Sierra Leone, like much of Africa, is at a crossroads. Unless food systems can transform to deliver universal access to healthy diets that are resilient, affordable and sustainable, hunger and malnutrition will remain a major brake on development.

Even worse, the status quo may condemn large parts of Africa’s population to a future of disadvantage and inequity. Now is the time for all those who can make a difference to work together to meet this challenge.