Climate Change, Childhood Nutrition, and Education in Sub Saharan Africa

Erika Hansen

DATA 150

2,860 Words

Every year, the developed world, chiefly the United States, China, and India, emitted ten of thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide. The story is well known from here– carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and as atmospheric concentrations increase the global temperature has risen by more than 1℃ in the last century. The rapid ascension of temperatures has caused radical changes in the climate across the world, but the burden is not shared equally. African countries, specifically those located in Sub Saharan Africa, are among the most susceptible areas in the world to the ravages of climate change, despite contributing very little to the overall amount of emissions. This is due to both the geographical location of these countries, as well as lack of infrastructure and funding to address climate resilience. This inequity is profoundly unfair. The developing world is taking away the freedom to a stable climate from those living in Africa leaving them to suffer the outcomes of a global crisis they do not contribute to. One factor that makes Africa particularly susceptible to climate change is the high rates of poverty and hunger. In fact, “approximately one third of all children” living in Africa are stunted (Gladstone et al., 2017). Since stunting is caused by chronic malnutrition, this statistic points to Africa’s dire problem with regards to childhood malnutrition. As the climate becomes more unpredictable, it is predicted that malnutrition will increase across the area, as reliably growing enough food to feed one’s family or to produce sufficient profit will become progressively more challenging. Therefore, the African continent is subject to the unfreedom of lack of sufficient nutritious food, which is worsened by the unfreedom of an unstable climate, especially in the and Sub Saharan Africa. Evidently, a single facet of development can impact other factors within a country. To further illustrate, there is an indication that malnourished children are less likely to receive a quality education than those who receive quality, abundant food. A lack of sufficient nutrition slows brain development in children, hindering the ability to learn, and stunts physical development, altering the perception of authority figures towards a smaller than average child. Compounded upon the unfreedoms previously discussed, many citizens of countries in Sub Saharan Africa do not enjoy the freedom of being adequately educated. Granted, other factors that impact this freedom, such as gender and financial stability. Nonetheless, there is a potential relationship between climate change and education, as one investigates the interplay between three development goals: climate action, zero hunger, and quality education.

Scientists have long been in agreement that the earth is warming, causing alterations in the climate. Most applicable to this argument, it is expected that Sub Saharan Africa will experience increased temperatures and decreased precipitation levels (select regions may experience an increase in precipitation, but this is in a smaller area). Both of these factors will contribute to a higher incidence of prolonged droughts and conditions that are generally adverse to the cultivation of crops, especially drought-sensitive staple grains in Sub Saharan Africa. Regarding temperatures, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that by the end of the 21st century the average temperature in Sub Saharan will surpass any extreme temperature recorded in the area to date (Battisti & Naylor, 2009). Sustained temperatures could easily reach above 38℃, making many regions in Sub Saharan Africa nearly uninhabitable for humans, meaning cultivating crops would be impossible. As temperatures continue to rise on track to meet the IPCC’s estimate, it will become increasingly difficult to grow a sufficient amount of food to support the population of Sub Saharan Africa, especially when compounded with decreasing precipitation. Many researchers are attempting to specifically model the impact climate change will have on agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa. One geospatial analysis modeled maize production and various future climate scenarios and found the percent change in maize yields from between 2010 and 2090 will be -8.1% to -2.9%. The researchers determined these estimated values by connecting spatial patterns of increasing aridity and yield losses. The measurement of aridity acts as the climate factor, as arity is expected to increase as climate change progresses. The scientists used a crop model called AquaCrop-OS from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to calculate yields and compiled 122 climate projections to utilize a wide variety of environmental data. The AquaCrop-OS model includes a formula with four coefficients that act as independent variables for the hypothetical climate scenarios. These coefficients include temperature stress, crop water productivity, transpiration, and evapotranspiration and can be used to calculate the total above-ground dry biomass over the entire growing season. The formula also includes a value accounting for the combined effect of heat stress, cold stress, and solid infertility. The biomass value can then be multiplied by the harvest index, a measurement of the fraction of above-ground biomass that results in a yield, to arrive at the desired value– total annual crop yield. The AquaCrop-OS index was run on a map of Africa on a 2o x 2o grid. The yield for each square was calculated with the predicted climate data from the 122 climate models for four different time periods: 2010, 2030, 2050, and 2090. The median crop yield for each grid cell was compiled on a map of all of Africa, making it possible to compare predicted yield losses across the continent. By considering the squares that encompassed the area of Sub Saharan Africa (in the 2090 projection), it was possible to determine an estimate for the median yield loss in Sub Saharan Africa in the next 70 years (Dale et al., 2017). Although a percent change of -8.1% to -2.9% does not seem very drastic, given the scale of Sub Saharan Africa, this is a vast decrease in food availability. Additionally, many who live in Sub Saharan Africa are especially vulnerable and have no other way to acquire sustenance. In Sub Saharan Africa, 75% of the population lives in rural areas and the predominant livelihood revolves around agriculture or livestock (Sedda et al., 2015). Consequently, the population is vulnerable to the whims of the climate, as their lives depend on a good harvest as many growers are subsistence farmers or crop yields represent the entirety of an individual’s income. Essentially, drastic changes in the climate can strip farmers in Sub Saharan Africa of their livelihoods and they are left with no means to supplement their diets with imported food. Farmers and their families are already suffering.

To illustrate, it is reasonable to assume that as the climate becomes more extreme and crop yields fall those living in Sub Saharan Africa will have less food to eat, which has devastating ramifications for everybody, especially the susceptible populations like children. As stated above, Sub Saharan Africa has very high rates of childhood malnutrition and the uncertainty brought by climate change has the potential to put more children at risk. One statistical study was done in Kenya and Mali found a negative correlation between birth weight and temperature and a positive correlation between birth weight and the rate of precipitation (Bakhtsiyarava et al., 2018). In other words, as average monthly temperatures increased, it was found that the average birth weight decreased and as the average rate of precipitation fell so too did birth weights. Low birth weights reflect the health of a child in the womb and maternal health. High heat while an infant is gestating can have negative impacts on a child’s health and a malnourished mother will not pass sufficient nutrients to her child (Bakhtsiyarava et al., 2018). Accordingly, newborns in areas suffering from the consequences of climate change begin life malnourished and this trend continues through life. Stunting is another way to measure a child’s level of nutrition, but on a more long-term level, as height can be measured over a period of years to track a child’s development. The results of a study on 13 Sub Saharan African Countries relating stunting and climate change reveal a relationship similar to that of birth weight and climate change. An increased incidence of warming and drying before a child is born and during their formative years is correlated to an increase in stunting (Davenport et al., 2017). Both results indicate a correlation between the changing climate and rising child malnutrition in Sub Saharan Africa, predominantly due to decreased crop yields and climate instability. A geospatial analysis of rates of poverty in Sub Saharan Africa and the Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI), which measures the “greenness of plants” found that an inverse relationship between the “greenness” of plants and intense poverty; a similar relationship was also found regarding childhood malnutrition (Sedda et al., 2015). Hence, a successful growing season, as measured by NDVI, has the potential to decrease poverty and malnutrition, but as climate change progresses, such a season is becoming progressively scarce. Furthermore, NDVI was found to be correlated with education, meaning “greener” plants result in higher educational attainment (Sedda et al., 2015). Therefore, the influence climate change has on Sub Saharan Africa reaches beyond agriculture and childhood malnutrition.

It is possible to connect a child’s educational attainment and nutritional status by collecting physical data, such as height and weight, and academic data, including the time school was started and how long school was attended. A group of researchers did such a survey to collect information in Zimbabwe and found that a higher height given age measurement as a preschooler is associated with increased height, more grades of schooling complete, and an earlier starting age for school in the future (Alderman et al., 2006). In other words, there is evidence that children who are malnourished, and resultingly shorter, receive less schooling. There are a handful of social and physiological explanations for this correlation. For instance, the height of a child can impact adults’ perception of the maturity of the child in question. A parent will be more inclined to keep a short child home longer regardless of age, as short stature is associated with younger children who are not prepared to attend school (Gladstone et al., 2017). This phenomenon explains why some children have worse attendance, but malnutrition can also affect a child’s performance in school. A lack of sufficient food and a nutrient diverse diet in childhood hinders brain development and has been shown to cause lower achievement on memory tests, compromised auditory and visual faculties, and abnormal social interactions (Gladstone et al., 2017). As a consequence, malnourished children are typically low achievers when they do attend school, meaning they are more likely to learn less while there and drop out earlier than better nourished children. Mental impairment and lower educational attainment in Sub Saharan Africa is a prevalent, widespread problem given the high rates of childhood malnutrition and stunting present. Given the information presented above, this problem will continue to worsen as the immediacy of climate change escalates. As climate change hampers crop yields, families will not be able to grow enough to subsist on and there will be no surplus to sell, making it inconceivable to diversify their diet. If children only have access to a small amount of staple grain, their educational success will surely suffer along with their nutritional status. This reality can have striking ramifications.

In 2014, it was estimated that early life growth faltering, mainly caused by malnutrition, in Western Sub Saharan Africa led to the loss of 8.8 million years of educational attainment per birth cohort. Moreover, it was found that the economic costs due to education lost in Sub Saharan Africa in the same year is equal to $34.2 billion (Fink et al., 2016). Children in Sub Saharan Africa are losing an incredible amount of schooling due to their lack of access to sufficient nutrition and it has dramatic repercussions for the economy. Children who are less educated are less likely to acquire gainful employment and can be a burden on local and national economies. Likewise, the amount of physical and intellectual capital lost as a consequence of children not reaching their potential is unquantifiable since it is impossible to predict what would have been discovered or solved had a child’s nutritional requirements been met. In addition, the less educated a society is overall, the more limited citizen participation in government. Uneducated constituents are uninformed, can struggle to understand political rhetoric, and a lack of literacy can further impede awareness of the political process. This can severely impact an area or country as citizen’s voices are not accurately represented within government and oppressive leaders gain more control based on this power dynamic. Finally, the next generation of children can suffer, as poorly educated mothers are ignorant of the proper ways to care for children and are less likely to encourage their children to attend school. This results in a feedback loop of poor education within a family, which is probable to progressively exacerbate as the impacts of climate change grow.

Climate change can negatively influence the economic sphere in many ways from damaging infrastructure to burdening tourism to interfering with productivity. However, this route, from education to nutrition to education is potentially a little discovered economic effect. As such, it would be worthwhile to find a way to directly connect climate change and education, rather than the tangential relationship this paper finds. Given many variables can cause variance in educational attainment, it would be necessary to overlay climatic events, crop yields, malnutrition, and education in order to find a robust correlation. This would also aid in excising confounding factors like gender, income, and parental education. Due to the previously stated cascade of consequences lower rates of education can have, providing universal quality education in the most important development issue considered in this paper. Nevertheless, questions of development are inherently complicated. To solve the problem of education, one must look at nutrition and the environment as well. First, Sub Saharan Africa needs to be climate-resilient. The climate is changing, and whether it is fair or not, Sub Saharan Africa is being affected greatly and the challenges are only going to grow. Farmers in the area need access to agricultural technology and information about sustainable practices that many desperately lack (Brown et al., 2009). This will help keep crop yields high for as long as possible. Such improvements would only be delaying the inevitable though, as effective global action to mitigate climate change is the only long-term solution. Moreover, it is important to include Sub Saharan nations and other developing countries in this worldwide decision. Climate action will help address the problem of hunger in the area since decreasing crop yields and harsh environmental conditions contribute significantly to the problem. Granted, other responses are required, like programs to provide proper education to parents about nutrition requirements and the economy must be stable enough to provide sufficient jobs to the population. Similarly, reaching the goal of zero hunger will contribute to the fight for quality education in Sub Saharan Africa. Although many details will still need to be addressed, it would nonetheless be an improvement. Then, hopefully, other aspects of development, like the economy and political participation, would see advancements. From this viewpoint, it all starts with climate action. All this being said, the connections made here are not a singular solution. Rather, this paper provides a new perspective on a global issue that will become more dire in the following decades and a new framework with which to solve a problem that has plagued the world for centuries.

Climate change is a complex global phenomenon and, in many cases, the true repercussions of the process are intangible. Consequently, data science can serve as a useful tool to measure climate change, allowing scientists to measure what is occurring now and what the Earth will suffer in the future. It is especially important to model the results different emission scenarios could have on the severity of climate change to elucidate predictions based on the status quo or the improvements mitigation could have. Finally, data science can frame climate change as the immediate threat it is, altering people’s mindsets so they are inclined to make changes. Furthermore, comprehending the complexities of developmental issues is many fold more challenging than climate change, for people’s behavior surpasses the unpredictability of the environment and systems in underdeveloped countries are as interconnected as ecosystems. Once again, scientists can employ data science to model convoluted interactions and discover patterns that would otherwise be impossible to find. Results from collection and modeling techniques can also be used by policymakers and international organizations to quantify the effects of malnutrition or lack of education as well as the causes. This can lead to the discovery of solutions. Data science is especially pertinent in this paper as many complex ideas converge, intensifying the challenges of identifying specific outsets of the issues and compiling a solution to such a multifaceted, far-reaching problem. Scientists, decision-makers, and ordinary global citizens need access to nuanced, robust information in order to uncover inequities and suffering and, ultimately grapple to find a solution. Data science is the first step.

References

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