The Spillover Effects of the War in Ukraine are being felt in East Africa
The surging food, oil, fuel, and cooking gas prices might be the wake-up call Africans needed to reform their import-dependency habits.
Although Africa’s geographic location is far from Ukraine, the spillover effects of the ongoing war there add significant weight to the shoulders of the most vulnerable East Africans already dealing with droughts, floods, the impact of a recent locust invasion, continuous security threats, a civil war, racial disputes, and food supply disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An Overview of Some of the Existing Problems in East Africa
In the period between 2019 and 2020, a swarm of locusts destroyed and threatened a large number of agricultural productions in Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania provoking deep concerns for the food security of the region where 26.2 million People experienced critical food insecurity in the affected Countries in early 2020. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, compelling governments to enforce preventive measures and movement restrictions to curb the virus. However, such efforts led to limited economic activities, disrupted food supply chains, undermined hunger reduction efforts, and raised the number of hungry people in the region. The combined impact of these crises and climate change is estimated to have pushed more than 7 million people across six countries in East Africa into a hunger crisis in August last year. Moreover, a recent East Africa food security outlook projects extreme food insecurity to persist in the region this year due to droughts, floods, disputes, and several other economic shocks to food and income sources.
On top of that, the continuous security threats in Somalia and a severe drought caused by a prolonged rainfall shortage, the shattering Hargeisa market fire, the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, droughts in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands, the recent ethnic conflict in Sudan, and the flooding situation in South Sudan leave some parts of these countries vulnerable to all sorts of economic shocks.
How the Russia-Ukraine War is Impacting Africa’s Food Security
Wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine account for a significant share of the exported wheat in the world. According to a UNCTAD rapid assessment completed in March 2022, Africa imported $1.4 billion (12% of total African wheat imports) in wheat compared to $0.5 billion (10%) by least developed countries (LDCs) from Ukraine and another $3.7 billion (32% of total African wheat imports) compared to an LDCs amount of $1.4 billion (29%) from Russia in the period between 2018 to 2020. In addition, a glance at the imports of African countries shows the continent highly relies on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine; 25 African countries import more than one-third of the wheat they consume from the two countries and 15 of them import more than half.
Given Africa’s high dependence on wheat and other commodity exports from these two countries, the war in Ukraine interrupted the price of basic foodstuffs causing it, as measured by the FAO Food Price Index, to reach an all-time high. This could make some food products unaffordable to the poor and worsen the food insecurity issue in the continent — adding distress to the pre-existing challenges the poorest Africans in the continent were already facing.
How the Russia-Ukraine War is Impacting Africa’s Oil, Fuel, and Gas Prices
Russia is one of the largest producers of oil and natural gas in the world, the sanctions on Moscow induced by the war now leave the country unable to export these commodities — leaving off the second-largest oil producer from global supply chains. Because of that, worldwide oil prices sour to their highest level (over $100 a barrel) for the first time in more than a decade. Africa is no exception; fuel and cooking gas prices surged in Kenya; a fuel shortage was experienced at petrol stations in some parts of the country earlier this month. In addition, shipping costs, oil, fuel, and cooking gas prices keep on rising in Somalia.
The Overall Impact of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict on Africa and Call to Action
Russia and Ukraine play an enormous role in Africa’s imports in terms of food, oil, and fuel supply; the war in Ukraine will continue to raise the cost of living in the continent through its ripple effects on the price of grains, oil, fuel, and fertilizers unless Africans consider alternative ways to provide for its import-dependent population. Otherwise, African will have to pay an additional amount for ingredients and some final food items, energy, and transportation.
The countries in Africa that consume a large amount of wheat and other grain imports from Ukraine or Russia will be the most affected, while the rise in oil prices will impact ordinary people living in the continent’s oil-importing countries. On the other hand, the wide-ranging war-caused emergencies in Ukraine might redirect funds that would otherwise have gone to poverty reduction and related causes.
To sum up, the upsurge in the prices of the commodities that largely came from Russia and Ukraine before the war will likely further sour — raising the inflation rate and, in turn, push the cost of living up. Nonetheless, Africans can view this as a wake-up call to reform their import-dependency habits and reconsider what can be grown or produced inside Africa and what really needs to be imported from outside the continent’s borders.
