Gaps in African Nutrition Remain

Africa is going through a transformation. A few countries are seeing skyrocketing economies, while others struggle to keep up. The implications of these changes on their ability to feed their rising populations are explored in the following charts.

While most countries saw an increase in their caloric supply, like Ghana, which nearly doubled its available calories per capita, others suffered in this regard. All the data was retrieved from Our World In Data.

Minimum Daily Caloric Requirement

Despite some countries seeing a drop in their available calories, as of 2018, no African nation dipped below their minimum caloric requirement calculated by Our World in Data. This value describes the minimum amount of daily energy per person to ensure a healthy minimum weight. The numbers factors in age, sex, and activity levels of individuals and range between 1,666 and 1,879 calories.

The Central African Republic, which saw a 22.63% decrease in the available caloric supply per capita since 1980, remained just above the minimum. Meanwhile, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria all stayed above a 1,500-calorie difference between their available calories per capita and minimum caloric requirement, which indicates these countries have a supply that’s almost double the required calories per person.

Protein Supply

After averaging the protein supply of all African nations using available data, this chart shows which countries fall above, or below that average. So, while countries like the Central African Republic have not seen a decline in their caloric supply below their required minimum, they still fall below the protein supply average for the continent.

Country Nutrition Summary

The following is a searchable table showing each of the values displayed above.

Story Ideas

What agricultural practices can countries like the Central African Republic enforce to raise not only their caloric supply, while taking into consideration their relatively low protein supply?

Ghana stands as the African nation with the largest relative change in caloric supply between 1980 and 2018, but it stands below the African average of available protein. Does this mean their caloric diet is focusing on grains rather than nutrition?

How has the data changed post pandemic?