Why are so many Africans still malnourished in 2016?

A significant percentage of Africans are still lacking access to nutritious food. We all know that. But what’s surprising is that, this lack of access to nutritious food is not because the world itself is not capable of feeding its population. In fact, the global food production would be more than enough to feed the entire world, so why are so many Africans still malnourished?

One of the major causes of malnutrition in underdeveloped countries has nothing to do with economics or nutrition, but rather with transportation. Tons and tons of food end up rotting on the docks instead of getting to the population. How come? 3 words: government’s red tape. This idiom refers to any excessive regulation and/or bureaucracy system that prevents things to get done. In several African countries, there are interminable amount of paperwork to go through, tariffs to pay and 'bonus' payments to pass under the counter before goods can be released for distribution, and sometimes it’s already too late, the food is spoiled…

In some cases, once you get beyond that first problem, then comes the cultural barriers to overcome; People don’t eat foods that they don’t know. So even if one food is the most nutritious food on earth, if people don’t know it they usually won’t eat it. They stick to their traditional diet. This can be a problem as well. Rice, for example, is a wholesome food, but the way it is consumed (white, e.g. with husks removed) makes it loses a lot of its nutritional benefits. So why do African people eat white rice? Because white rice is deemed 'better' as it is more expensive and eaten by wealthy people. So we have people who are desperately in need of nutritious food like whole grain rice but are spending their money on white rice instead because it ‘looks better’. And the list goes on and on…

The problem of malnutrition in Africa has multiple roots. Transportation, education, culture, economic policies are some of them. Political instability and conflicts also contribute to exacerbate the issues of malnutrition. So, for sure a complex problem requires a complex solution and it is very hard to do so. But there is something that can be done: improving the ethic aspect on this problem. African leaders and their governments has to be reminded that being healthy and having access to food is a fundamental and basic human rights. They are responsible for their own people to be healthy. We know that the world has the resources to feed everyone, what’s lacking is a kind of human-will to do so.