The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, has said 64.8 percent of the African population cannot afford a healthy diet. This is contained in a report titled “Healthy diets remain unaffordable for a third of the world’s population.” The world body attributed diet efficiency to purchasing power parity, comprising diversity, adequacy, moderation and balance. According to the UN agency, the figure in Asia was 35.1 percent; in Latin America and the Caribbean, 27.7 percent; in Oceania 20.1 percent; and in Northern America and Europe, 4.8 per cent.
People who cannot afford the least-cost healthy diet in their countries are likely facing at least some degree of food and nutritional insecurity and thus face the risk of swelling the ranks of the hungry as measured in SOFI’s, the Chief Economist of FAO Maximo Torero said.
Torero said, “The uneven progress in the economic access to healthy diets cast a shadow of achieving Zero Hunger in the world, six years away from the 2030 deadline.
“There is the need to accelerate the transformation of our agrifood systems to strengthen their resilience to the major drivers and address inequalities to ensure that healthy diets are affordable for and available to all. But there is also a need to assure people that they can access and consume healthy diets.”
The FAO’s report said the alarm is greatest where countries’ fiscal capacities are weakest, and where the cost burden perpetuates itself by dragging down economic growth.
It said, “For Africa, the average price was 3.74 PPP dollars; for Asia 4.20 PPP dollars; for Latin America and the Caribbean 4.56 PPP dollars; for Oceania 3.46 PPP dollars and Northern America and Europe 3.75 PPP dollars.
“Subregional variations were considerable, ranging from a high of 5.34 PPP dollars in Eastern Asia to a low of 2.96 PPP dollars in Northern America”.