Link to article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/28/imf-rising-food-and-fuel-prices-stoke-risk-of-unrest-in-africa
Surging food and energy prices stoked by the war in Ukraine may lead to “social unrest” in Africa, the International Monetary Fund has warned. Most countries south of the Sahara are already seeing a slowdown in economic growth from last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact will be amplified by the rising cost of cereals and fuel, it said last Thursday.
Abebe Aemro Selassie, head of the IMF’s African department, told AFP that he was “very worried” by the twin impact of food and higher fuel costs — something particularly felt in the great majority of African countries that are not oil or gas exporters. “Fuel price increases feed into transportation costs, and people providing goods and services will raise their prices because they are now facing higher input costs.” Food prices monitored by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reached the highest levels since the index was launched in 1990 between February and March. One of these products is wheat, which Africa is dependent on (85% of wheat is imported). Due to food riots in recent history, at a time with less turmoil than now, many officials are worried what the future may hold.
I think the West needs to help most of these disadvantaged countries before this spirals into unrest in these countries. Throughout my current event articles, I have read several cases of both the possibility and actual food riots occuring in the Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa, and I’m sure those are not the only places where this is occuring. If all of these countries start to dip into unrest/civil conflict over food in a close time frame, it may be too much to help with at the time and things may get out of control. I’m not sure what aid we could give, but we throw away millions of pounds of food a year and I can’t help but feel that there should be a way to get this food to people that could need it.