Rapid population inhibiting fight against hunger in sub-Saharan Africa

Rapid population growth is a major stumbling block to tackling hunger in sub-Saharan Africa.

This was contained in the Population Reference Bureau’s (PRB’s) February Policy brief made available to the Ghana News Agency.

The PRB said despite some advances, most of the region is unlikely to achieve the Millennium Development Goal’s target on hunger.

It said progress toward this target was measured as the percentage of children under age five who were moderately or severely underweight for their age. The PRB said since 1990, the prevalence of underweight children in sub-Saharan Africa had decreased from 27% to 22%.

It said in terms of absolute numbers however, the picture changes dramatically due to high fertility and limited reproductive health information and services.

The PRB said the region has 50% more children than it did in 1990.

“Today, 30 million children (one in five) in sub-Saharan Africa are under-weight-5.5 million more than 20 years ago,” it said.**