World leaders meeting at this weekend's 'Hunger Summit' should recognise the role of micronutrients in alleviating the burden of undernutrition.
According to the most recent round of Afrobarometer surveys, 16% of respondents had gone without food 'always' or 'many times' in the previous year.
Trends show the total number of people who are chronically hungry worldwide is falling, but Africa is an unwelcome exception. And the latest projections do not anticipate vast improvements.
A 2012 report, published by a number of UN-affiliated organisations, suggests the chronically hungry in Africa - that is, with an insufficient calorie intake - make up some 22.9% of its total population.
Although the prevalence of chronic hunger has fallen in the twenty year period under consideration, the rate population growth means that the overall number of people affected in Africa today stands at 239 million, a rise of 36%.
Beyond the immediate and pressing concerns of being hungry, it often leaves behind a permanent legacy of stunting (low height) or wasting (low weight). Children remain the most vulnerable group, particularly between between conception and their second birthday, because nutrition in this period will affect their adult lives.
Undernourished children - those suffering from wasting, stunting, micronutrient deficiencies and being underweight - are said to earn 20% less than their healthy peers, are significantly less productive, and are more likely to contract conditions such as tuberculosis.
This Saturday, world leaders will meet at a 'Hunger Summit' in London; they must realise the importance of nutrition not just in individuals but also in national development, as a "fundamental driver of a wide range of development goals". So what lessons have been missing from agendas?
Over-reliance on Maize
Attempts to break this cycle have been unsuccessful. This is despite the fact that Africa produces enough food to feed itself.
In part, this is caused by the dependence of many diets on maize, which though calorific, offers only mediocre nutritional qualities. For example, both Zambians and Malawians are estimated to consume more than 50% of their calories in maize.
Maize was introduced to Africa from South America in the 16th century, but it was only in the 20th century that its use became widespread. It supplanted millet and sorghum as the staple foods of most communities on the African continent.
This was due to factors such as the supposed suitability of maize to the environmental conditions, its high yield and the demand of the British export market for starch, giving corn a "price premi[um]".
As more varied, nutritional crops were supplanted by maize, African diets narrowed, along with their nutritional intake, resulting in the micronutrient deficiencies common today.
"People are defining food security as maize security,"says Walter Nyika, who leads nutritional campaigns as Regional Coordinator of the ReSCOPE Programme in Malawi.
New strategies
But the slow recognition of this has led to some innovative solutions, and these must be taken on board in global discussions.
In Tanzania, 59% of children between 5 months and 6 years old have iron deficiency, and 33% have vitamin A deficiency. To combat this, President Kikwete this year introduced a 'food fortification programme'.
Acknowledging that rural areas don't rely upon industrially-produced foods on the same scale as urban centres, it supplies local grain mills with a range of subsidised goods. Zinc has been added to grain, iodine to salt, and vitamin A to cooking oil.
The Tanzanian government is aiming to get complete coverage amongst the population, meaning this health intervention that could directly benefit millions of people.
Across the continent, hundreds of millions of people grow their own food. Therefore targeting subsistence farmers, by increasing the variation of what they grow, could make a vast difference. This is the goal of Nyika's organisation, ReSCOPE, which use schools and colleges to teach a technique called permaculture.
"The beauty of permaculture" says Nyika, "is that once you teach the skills, it is based on what is locally available". As a derivative of minimum tillage organic farming, permaculture uses minimal ploughing - which keeps nutrients in the soil - along with varied crops and limited inputs, to create sustainable, year-round agriculture.
The result is "food sovereignty" says Nyika. Locally-produced goods with minimal bought inputs, along with a varied output of crops produced all year round, allow farmers to become more resistant to famine. As the foods are not imported from other regions or countries, the importance of stable logistics - one of the biggest causes of famine - will diminish.
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Furthermore, organic minimum tillage farming has shown impressive yields, meaning that families can sell some of their food for income, something heavily encouraged by Nyika's organisation. ReSCOPE now work across southern and eastern Africa, just one among many groups who are using local, community-based methods to promote better nutrition.
At the moment, aid from rich countries makes up $67 a year for every person with HIV/AIDS, but only $2 for every person who is malnourished, even though 2.2m children die per year from the direct effects of undernutrition.
That is two thirds of the number who die from AIDS, before including the effects of disease, lower productivity and lower brain development among those who suffer- or have suffered- from malnutrition.
As world leaders meet in London this weekend to discuss the issue of hunger, these lessons - from the over-reliance on maize, to Tanzania's scheme and Nyika's ReSCOPE organisation - should hang heavy.
It is important that money is not just thrown into more calories and more maize, but into local, grassroots solutions and cost-effective programmes that have been shown to work. This change of focus can galvanise health and development agendas across Africa.
