The effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation practices on food security in sub-Saharan Africa

Food security issues have been a problem in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite the governments of SSA implementing various strategies to improve food availability and nutrition, the empirical evidence on the effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation practices on food security in SSA, as well as their heterogeneous effects across the region’s four sub-regions, is limited. Using panel data from 31 sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2021, this study aims to examine the effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation practices on food security in SSA. It further investigates the channels through which climate change mitigation and adaptation practices can affect food security in SSA. Data from the FAO, WDI, USDA and the Climate Change Knowledge Portal was used. This study used the fixed and random effects model for analyzing the effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation practices on food security in SSA and across its four sub-regions. The pooled mean group estimation technique was also applied for robustness. The results indicate that climate change mitigation and adaptation practices (irrigation, crop diversification, forest cover area and organic fertilizer) improve food availability, measured by the average dietary energy supply adequacy and reduce stunting in SSA. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that climate change mitigation and adaptation practices impact food security in the four sub-regions of SSA. The results further demonstrate that climate change mitigation and adaptation practices positively affect channel variables prevalence of undernourishment and gross domestic product in purchasing power parity. This study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to investigate the effects of climate change mitigation and adaptation practices on food security in SSA and across its four sub-regions (East, West, Middle and Southern SSA) using panel data and the different pathways through which these practices affect food security. Based on the findings, the study thus proposes that the governments in SSA should improve irrigation facilities, encourage crop diversification and promote organic fertilizers, especially livestock manure and agroforestry farming systems.