For the sub-region, the most worrying consequences of the war in Ukraine are the outbreak of fuel prices and the shortage of fertilizer.
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Can diplomatic twists and turns of the last days prevent Africa with the worst scenario? The African Union (AU) was “congratulated”, on Saturday July 23, of the agreement signed the day before between Russia and Ukraine to unlock the exports of cereals blocked since the start of the war – a “welcome development “For the continent in the face of increased risk of famine.
The slightest puff of oxygen is scrutinized with anxiety, while African countries have been threatened by “the worst food and nutrition crisis for ten years”, according to the World Food Program (PAM). The emergency is particularly felt in West Africa, where the curves of inflation are panic: + 30 % in June in Ghana, + 22.4 % in Sierra Leone, + 18.6 % in Nigeria, + 15.3 % in Burkina Faso … “The situation is becoming uncontrollable”, warns Chris Nikoi, regional director of WFP for West Africa and Central Africa. Thus in the Sahel, 7.7 million children under the age of 5 are likely to suffer from severe malnutrition.
West Africa is not so dependent on Russian and Ukrainian cereals. “Some countries like Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Senegal and Togo import more than half of their Ukraine and Russia wheat. But this remains marginal on the scale of the sub-region. ECOWAS states [Economic Community of West African States] consume mainly local cereals such as corn, sorghum, millet and tubers, “explains Alain Sy Traoré, in charge of agriculture and development rural at the ECOWAS.
But the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has caused a surge in fuel prices, which has repercussions on those of food products. Local agricultural productions are thus paid at a high price since the start of the war. Cassava, the basis of food in several ECOWAS countries, is 30 to 80 % more expensive, depending on the country, than the average of the last five years. The price of the sweet potato, a tuber also prized, increased by 60 to 80 % in June, the yam of 30 to 60 %.
counterproductive measures
These vertiginous increases are also linked to export prohibitions decreed by several producing countries, such as Benin with refined vegetable oils or Ivory Coast with cassava, yam, banana and rice. Measures taken to stop the outbreak of prices but which, ironically, strengthen the cost of products in importing states. At the beginning of July, the CEDEAO called on the region’s ministers of agriculture to remove these obstacles to trade, contrary to the principle of free movement governing the regional organization and likely to accentuate the food crisis.
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