Food security in Kinshasa “very critical”

An economic survey of the situation in the DRC capital Kinshasa has described household food security as “very critical”, especially with regard to the negative effect on the nutritional state of children. The UN-commissioned survey noted that only 10.6 percent of households had three meals per day and malnutrition was growing, with the city’s outer suburbs worst-affected. Kinshasa has borne the brunt of food shortages caused by the civil war in the country. Since the war broke out in August 1998, the population’s purchasing power has reduced by about 45 percent due to rampant inflation. Available foodstuffs only cover 60 percent of needs, and the population is consuming less than half the food deemed necessary. The people of Kinshasa are becoming poorer and poorer, with the majority living below the poverty line. “A decrease in production, coupled with an accelerated increase in prices, is characteristic of the Congolese economy since 1989,” the report stated. “Drastic reduction in per capita revenue, the erosion of individual earnings aggravated by the weak public sector, have plunged the Congolese economy into the ‘trap of low income’.