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All around the world, inequalities persist in the complex web of social, economic, and ecological factors that mediate food security outcomes at different human and institutional scales. There have been rapid and continuous improvements in agricultural productivity and better food security in many regions of the world during the past 50 years due to an expansion in crop area, irrigation, and supportive policy and institutional initiatives. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is inverted. Statistics show that food insecurity has risen since 2015 in Sub-Saharan African countries, and the situation has worsened owing to the Ukraine conflict and the ongoing implications of the COVID-19 threat. This review looks into multidimensional challenges to achieving the SDG2 goal of “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” in Sub-Saharan Africa and the prosper policy recommendations for action. Findings indicate that weak economic growth, gender inequality, high inflation, low crop productivity, low investment in irrigated agriculture and research, climate change, high population growth, poor policy frameworks, weak infrastructural development, and corruption are the major hurdles in the sustaining food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Promoting investments in agricultural infrastructure and extension services together with implementing policies targeted at enhancing the households’ purchasing power, especially those in rural regions, appear to be essential drivers for improving both food availability and food access.

Background The world population is expected to increase greatly this century, aggravating current problems related to climate, health, food security, biodiversity, energy and other vital resources. Population growth depends strongly on total fertility rate (TFR), but the relative importance of factors that influence fertility needs more study. Methods We analyze recent levels of fertility in relation to five factors: education (mean school years for females), economy (Gross Domestic Product, GDP, per capita), religiosity, contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR), and strength of family planning programs. We compare six global regions: E Europe, W Europe and related countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. In total, 141 countries are included in the analysis. We estimate the strength of relationships between TFR and the five factors by correlation or regression and present the results graphically. Results In decreasing order of strength, fertility (TFR) correlates negatively with education, CPR, and GDP per capita, and positively with religiosity. Europe deviates from other regions in several ways, e.g. TFR increases with education and decreases with religiosity in W Europe. TFR decreases with increasing strength of family planning programs in three regions, but only weakly so in a fourth, Sub-Saharan Africa (the two European regions lacked such programs). Most factors correlated with TFR are also correlated with each other. In particular, education correlates positively with GDP per capita but negatively with religiosity, which is also negatively related to contraception and GDP per capita. Conclusions These results help identify factors of likely importance for TFR in global regions and countries. More work is needed to establish causality and relative importance of the factors. Our novel quantitative analysis of TFR suggests that religiosity may counteract the ongoing decline of fertility in some regions and countries.

The Western Sahara conflict has proven to be one of the most protracted and intractable struggles facing the international community. Pitting local nationalist determination against Moroccan territorial ambitions, the dispute is further complicated by regional tensions with Algeria and the geo-strategic concerns of major global players, including the United States, France, and the territory’s former colonial ruler, Spain. For over twenty years, the UN Security Council has failed to find a formula that will delicately balance these interests against Western Sahara’s long-denied right to a self-determination referendum as one of the last UN-recognized colonies. In the first book-length treatment of the issue in over two decades, Zunes and Mundy examine the origins, evolution, and resilience of the Western Sahara conflict, deploying a diverse array of sources and firsthand knowledge of the region gained from multiple research visits. Shifting geographical frames—local, regional, and international—provide for a robust analysis of the stakes involved.

The China-Africa relationship has so far largely been depicted as one in which the Chinese state and Chinese entrepreneurs control the agenda, with Africans and their governments as passive actors exercising little or no agency. This volume examines the African side of the relation, to show how African state and non-state actors increasingly influence the China-Africa partnership and, in so doing, begin to shape their economic and political futures. The influx of public and private sector Chinese actors across the African continent has led to a rise of opportunities and challenges, which the volume sets out to examine. With case studies from Nigeria, Angola, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Zambia, and across the technology, natural resource, manufacturing, and financial sectors, it shows not only how African realities shape Chinese actions, but also how African governments and entrepreneurs are learning to leverage their competitive advantages and to negotiate the growing Chinese presence across the continent.

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as do conditions in failed and fragile states that make possible human rights deprivations. Because these reasons do not meet the legal understanding of persecution, the victims of these circumstances are not usually recognized as \"refugees,\" preventing current institutions from ensuring their protection. In this book, Alexander Betts develops the concept of \"survival migration\" to highlight the crisis in which these people find themselves. Examining flight from three of the most fragile states in Africa-Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia-Betts explains variation in institutional responses across the neighboring host states. There is massive inconsistency. Some survival migrants are offered asylum as refugees; others are rounded up, detained, and deported, often in brutal conditions. The inadequacies of the current refugee regime are a disaster for human rights and gravely threaten international security. InSurvival Migration, Betts outlines these failings, illustrates the enormous human suffering that results, and argues strongly for an expansion of protected categories.

Governments worldwide must invest in girls’ education, family planning, agriculture and security in this vulnerable region. Governments worldwide must invest in girls’ education, family planning, agriculture and security in this vulnerable region. Women arrive in a camp in the village of Kidjendi near Diffa, Niger

Background: Global climate change is anticipated to reduce future cereal yields and threaten food security, thus potentially increasing the risk of undernutrition. The causation of undernutrition is complex, and there is a need to develop models that better quantify the potential impacts of climate change on population health. OBJECTIVES: We developed a model for estimating future undernutrition that accounts for food and nonfood (socioeconomic) causes and can be linked to available regional scenario data. We estimated child stunting attributable to climate change in five regions in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2050. METHODS: We used current national food availability and undernutrition data to parameterize and validate a global model, using a process-driven approach based on estimations of the physiological relationship between a lack of food and stunting. We estimated stunting in 2050 using published modeled national calorie availability under two climate scenarios and a reference scenario (no climate change). RESULTS: We estimated that climate change will lead to a relative increase in moderate stunting of 1-29% in 2050 compared with a future without climate change. Climate change will have a greater impact on rates of severe stunting, which we estimated will increase by 23% (central SSA) to 62% (South Asia). Conclusions: Climate change is likely to impair future efforts to reduce child malnutrition in South Asia and SSA, even when economic growdi is taken into account. Our model suggests that to reduce and prevent future undernutrition, it is necessary to both increase food access and improve socioeconomic conditions, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

01 02 Whether by falling prey to Algerian corsairs or crashing onto the desert shores of Western Sahara, a handful of Americans in the first years of the Republic found themselves enslaved in a system that differed so markedly from nineteenth century U.S. slavery that some contemporaries and modern scholars hesitate to categorize their experiences as 'slavery.' Sears uses a comparative approach, placing African enslavement of Americans and Europeans in the context of Mediterranean and Ottoman slaveries, while individually investigating the system of slavery in Algiers and Western Sahara. This work illuminates the commonalities and peculiarities of these slaveries, while contributing to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution. 04 02 Remembering the 'Horror of Mahometan Vassalage:' 'This World if full of Vicissitudes' PART I: ALGIERS 'Far Distant From our Country, Families Friends and Connections': American Slaves in Ottoman Algiers 'Once a Citizen of the United States of America, but at Present the Most Miserable Slave': Americans and Slave Community 'American Livestock, Now Slaves in Algiers': Elite Slaves in Ottoman Algiers 'We Set No Great Value Upon Money': A Slave Economy PART II: WESTERN SAHARA 'Sons of Sorrow': American Slaves in the Western Sahara 'Clear the Country of All You Christian Dogs': The Business of Redemption A Different Kind of Slavery 13 02 Christine E. Sears is an assistant professor of History at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she teaches classes in the Atlantic World, Early American Republic, and comparative slavery. 02 02 This study illuminates the commonalities and the peculiarities of different slaveries and contributes to a growing body of literature that showcases the flexibility of slavery as an institution. 19 02 1) POWERFUL CONTRIBUTION TO ENSLAVEMENT STUDIES: While others have delineated the different strands of slavery in the Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds, Sears offers a particularly convincing and concrete examination by contrasting these with the American system of slavery. 2) HOT TOPIC: Enslavement studies is a rapidly growing field, with an exciting new transnational dimension that this study exemplifies. 3) UNUSUALLY BROAD PERSPECTIVE: Sears is actually an American historian, but her study reveals an impressive and credible engagement with all of the relevant literature in Middle Eastern and North African social/cultural studies. 08 02 \"Sears presents a highly readable history of the 140 American captives of corsairs in Algiers or from shipwrecks. Recommended.\" - CHOICE

BACKGROUND: The impacts of climate change are recognised as a key challenge of the 21st century. By 2030, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have the globally highest burden of disease due to climate change. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a sub-region under-represented at a global level, in addressing current and future climate change–related health impacts. It specifically assesses the NAPs of Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. METHODS: A thorough review was conducted, analysing articles, government reports, and national communications related to NAPs and climate change health outcomes in the selected countries. Sources were evaluated against pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. MAIN FINDINGS: All five countries prioritised health in their NAPs; however, health departments were excluded from assessments in two of the countries. Although health surveillance and early warning systems were included in the NAPs, there was limited evidence of their integration into broader climate, health, economic, and labour policies. National climate change focal points were identified, but governance and implementation at district and local levels were not well-documented. This review highlighted a need for greater inclusion of Indigenous and locally led knowledge. Common barriers identified included the lack of data with appropriate frequency and scale. Governance and implementation difficulties were also identified in all five countries; these difficulties included both a lack of coordination and a lack of institutional capacity. These challenges, especially a lack of political will to address the compound impacts of altered climate and health on all earth systems, are also found at the regional level. CONCLUSIONS: National strategies and implementation programs in SADC countries need to be agile in their ability to scale and adapt, yet they also need to include measurable actions and timeframes. Given the shared climate and health trends and the interconnected socio-economic, environmental, and political landscape, there is significant potential for regional coordination to address cross-border climate change impacts and to optimise resource use.