The CAADP Pillar I Framework

Table 5: Some Social Consequences of Land Degradation in Sub-Saharan AfricaConsequenceIncreased PovertyReduced FoodSecurityHunger andMalnutritionIncreased HealthProblemsForced MigrationIncreased LandResource ConflictsSocial ConsequencesNature and Severity In 2001, 45 percent of Africa‘s population lived below the poverty line of lessthan $1 per day. If nothing changes, absolute numbers of poor will continue to increase, so by2015 close to half the world‘s poor will live in Africa. In the decade of 1990-2000, cereal availability per capita in Africa decreasedfrom 136 to 118 kg per year. In 1997-99, some 194 million people (up from 167.7 in 1990-92) or 34percent of the African population had insufficient food to lead healthy andproductive lives. At the end of the 1990's, more than 20 percent of the population in 30 Africancountries were undernourished. In 18 countries more than 35 percent werechronically hungry. In 2001, 28 million people in Africa faced food emergencies due to droughts,floods and strife, with 25 million needing emergency food and agriculturalassistance. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 percent of the population or 183 million people willstill be undernourished by 2030 – by far the highest total for any region, andonly 11 million less than in 1997-99 (CAADP 2002). Malnutrition is expected to increase by an average of 32 percent (UNDP2006). Hunger and malnutrition in Africa have increased susceptibility to malaria,HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis (CAADP 2002, Sanchez 2002). Degradation of water resources has increased the risk of water bornediseases. Land degradation has led to forced migration of individuals, rural householdsand communities, when declining productivity meant their land resourcescould no longer provide for their needs, or when their personal security wasthreatened (e.g. by encroaching sand dunes, floods or land-slides). Conflicts (between settled farmers, herders and forest dwellers) over accessto land resources have increased as households and communities affectedby land degradation have encroached on the traditional lands of others in thesearch for new land for their crops and/or livestock.Through its impact on crop yields, livestock productivity, availability of forest products and indirectlyon fisheries, land degradation reduces the ability of individual rural households to be food secure.Malnutrition due to poverty and declining food production and quality, combined with increased waterborne diseases due to declining water quality, will result in increased health problems with theirassociated costs at both the individual household and wider society levels.Given the extreme reliance of rural livelihoods on agriculture, forestry and livestock, it is reasonableto conclude that persistent and deepening poverty in Africa is in part an outcome of stagnation in theproductivity of land and labour, itself a consequence of land degradation and unsustainableagricultural practices.60