Soaring food prices: IMF warns of “risks of social unrest” in Africa

Published on: 04/28/2022 – 14:06 The soaring food prices caused by the war in Ukraine are increasing “the risks of social unrest” in Africa, the International Monetary Fund warned on Thursday, fourteen years after the “riots of hunger”. Are the seeds of new “food riots” being planted in sub-Saharan Africa? A little early to tell, but soaring food prices have the International Monetary Fund fearing “social unrest” on the continent. “Fears over food security have sharply increased” with the war in Ukraine and the explosion of food prices, increasing “the risks of social unrest” within vulnerable countries, alerted, Thursday, April 28, the Washington institution in a regional report. “We are very concerned about the recent outbreak of prices of food and fuel” on the continent, commented to AFP the director of the African department at the IMF, Abebe Aemro Selassie, noting the risks of “social protests”. “This shock hits the poorest in an extremely targeted way. , by increasing food prices, those of fuels and transport in general, and at the end of the chain the producers of goods and services which raise their prices”, he continued. Food prices are unprecedented: they reached a new record in March and erased the previous high of 2011, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) index, which includes tariffs vegetable oils, cereals or dairy products. Wheat imported at 85% The rise in wheat prices is “particularly worrying”, writes the IMF in its report entitled “a new shock and little room for maneuver”. Because sub-Saharan Africa imports 85% of its cereal consumption, with particularly high amounts in Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Mozambique. More broadly, imports of wheat, rice and maize represent more than 40% of the calories consumed each day by the inhabitants of Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius and Cape Verde, details a graph of the international organization, which sees among the countries most weakened by food insecurity Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the states around the Sahel. Two months after the start of the war in Ukraine and while the conflict shows no sign of abating, “rising food prices will exacerbate food insecurity and social tensions”, fears the IMF. It was precisely a sharp increase in the prices of staple foods that preceded the “hunger riots” of 2008, more or less violent protest movements in around thirty countries, particularly in Senegal and Cameroon, as well as in the Maghreb and the Caribbean. Should we fear an act 2? The IMF remains cautious about potential violent revolts. FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu drew a parallel in April between the 2008 explosion and the current situation: the two crises are marked by soaring food, fuel and fertilizer prices, as well as transport, he said. The situation is even potentially more problematic this time, he added, due to two years of pandemic and the major risks that the war in Ukraine poses to the harvests of the year. next. The pandemic has increased the number of undernourished people to a quarter of the sub-Saharan population in 2021, calculates the IMF. A repetition of 2008 “can be avoided”, however estimated Qu Dongyu, citing the need to not not see the acceleration of export restrictions on food. The IMF is also worried about the budgetary capacities of States, in a region whose economic growth is expected to slow down this year to 3.8%: “many more countries from sub-Saharan Africa were in better budgetary health in 2008-2009 to absorb the shock”, points out Abebe Aemro Selassien. “This time, with such high public debts in so many countries, the room for maneuver is greatly reduced”, according to the Africa director who calls on the community international community to support the region “in the most energetic way possible”. With AFP