The International Monetary Fund says that the food crisis currently ravaging Nigeria and other sub-Saharan countries has been exacerbated by over-reliance on imported foods.
The Washington-based lender says staple food prices in sub-Saharan Africa surged by an average of 23.9 percent in 2020 to 22—the most since the 2008 global financial crisis.
The report says the increase was commensurate to an 8.5 percent rise in the cost of a typical food consumption basket beyond generalized price increases.
The report said that global factors were partly to blame because of the region’s imports of top staple foods, noting that the pass-through from global to local food prices was significant.
