1970s–2010s: (Economic Predicaments — Famine as a Recurrent Problem and Enduring Image, Sub-Saharan Africa Seeing Greater Population Growth Than Any Other Re…

1970s–2010s: (Economic Predicaments — Famine as a Recurrent Problem and Enduring Image, Sub-Saharan Africa Seeing Greater Population Growth Than Any Other Region Yet the Slowest Growth in Food Production, Three Explanations for Famine: Climate, Overpopulation, and Political Decisions About Entitlement and Access, Structural Adjustment Programs Heightening Vulnerability as in Zimbabwe Where Grain Reserves Were Sold and Foreign Exchange Proved Useless When Rains Failed, Mugabe Using Famine as a Political Weapon, and the Dual Vulnerability of Narrow Agricultural Export Economies Dependent on Decisions Made in the Developed World): Economic challenges remain among the most pressing. Famine has been recurrent and has become an enduring image of modern Africa — by the 1970s many states had become net importers of basic staples, and sub-Saharan Africa has seen greater population growth than any other non-Western region yet the slowest growth in food production. Three categories explain famine: climate (chronically low Sahel rainfall in the 1970s–1980s), overpopulation exceeding the carrying capacity of fragile lands, and political decisions about food distribution, prices, and entitlement — in many famine situations, there is no decline in food volume but changes in accessibility. Local and regional warfare has been both cause and result of famine. Structural adjustment programs have had ambiguous outcomes — Zimbabwe during the 1980s kept grain reserves providing basic food security, but SAPs argued for ending all policies restricting market forces, and the government sold its reserves for foreign exchange. When rains failed in the 1990s, there were no reserves to release and the government had to petition aid agencies while people starved. Mugabe complicated matters further by using famine as a political weapon, systematically starving opposition areas while distributing aid to loyal districts. The dual vulnerability of narrow agricultural export economies dependent upon markets and decisions in the developed world has dramatically diminished African states’ room for maneuver. Foreign aid, while ever more inventive, can never be more than a stopgap.