The Protein Sovereignty Index

Regional assessment

Central Africa

We assess Central Africa as Dependent (41.0). The region holds the largest land and water endowment per head in this index and it grows 71 per cent of the cereals and effectively all of the 55.1 million tonnes of cassava it consumes,[1][5][7] yet it delivers a population-weighted protein supply of 38.6 grams per person per day across the five members verifiable against the current FAOSTAT release, an all-members estimate of 43.7 grams standing only as an upper bound on a withdrawn data vintage, and an animal protein supply of 7.7 grams, against world figures of 92.5 and 38.9.[1][2] Access and affordability is the binding constraint, scoring 17 against 30 for shock endurance: 79.5 per cent of the population across the seven members with data cannot afford a healthy diet, against a world 31.9 per cent;[41] no member state holds a strategic food reserve of consequence, import cover in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is 1.69 months,[23] and the humanitarian pipeline that substitutes for national reserves was cut to 600,000 people a month from October 2025, with WFP warning of a complete break from February 2026, against 26.5 million Congolese in IPC Phase 3 or worse.[18][37]

Resource headroom scores 56, because the endowment cannot be reached: the eight members equip 85,350 hectares for irrigation, 0.28 per cent of their arable land,[50] agriculture takes 0.57 per cent of all credit extended in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[49] and the region's one attempt at industrial-scale expansion ended in a USD 285 million write-off and a criminal conviction.[51] Upstream dependence scores 53 once the low-input poverty artefact is discounted: no member produced a single tonne of fertiliser nutrient in 2023[4] and the two largest members refine no fuel at all.[53][54]

One qualification matters here. Even the access and affordability pillar, built to catch exactly this, scores cost relative to income, price volatility and physical reach rather than simply how badly people are fed. Central Africa's problem is productivity and violence rather than import dependence: the region remains barely import-dependent on the pillars that measure trade exposure even as it fails badly on the pillar that measures whether people can eat, and its protein system is almost wholly domestic, almost input-free and rests on resources it cannot use.

Covers: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe

The protein system

Eight states and roughly 180.5 million people, of whom 112.8 million are Congolese.[7] The diet is built on roots and tubers rather than grain, which shapes every number that follows. Per-capita cereal consumption is 35 kg a year in the DRC and 44 kg in the Central African Republic, against 104 kg in Gabon and 153 kg in Cameroon.[7] Cassava fills the gap: 45.2 million tonnes in the DRC alone, second in the world.[5]

Protein comes from four sources, three of them largely invisible to conventional statistics. Recorded livestock output is 1.94 million tonnes, or 10.7 kg per person per year, and is wildly uneven: Chad produces 969,686 tonnes for 21.0 million people while the DRC produces 253,194 tonnes for 112.8 million, or 2.24 kg each.[6] Fisheries output across the six members with FAO profiles is 717,092 tonnes, overwhelmingly wild inland capture.[12][13][14][15][16][17] Wild meat supplies an estimated 1.10 million tonnes a year across Central Africa, up from 0.73 million in 2000, and about 20 per cent of the recommended daily protein intake in rural communities, none of it in FAO food balance sheets.[26] Imported fish covers the rest: those six members bought USD 621.7 million of fish in 2022 against USD 11.9 million of exports, a 52-to-one net import position.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

The trade shape is bimodal. Cereal import requirements of 3.86 million tonnes against 14.29 million tonnes of utilisation give a regional dependency ratio of 27.0 per cent, but the members range from 6.4 per cent in Chad and 20.8 per cent in the DRC to 84.7 per cent in Gabon, 91.6 in the Republic of the Congo, 96.0 in Sao Tome and Principe and 100 in Equatorial Guinea, where FAO records no domestic cereal production at all.[7] The regional figure therefore describes almost nobody: 93.8 per cent of the population lives in the four least dependent states, and the four most dependent hold 6.2 per cent of the people and most of the money.[7]

Durable domestic capacity: 40

Quantitative score 44, adjusted down 4 points

Central Africa is close to staple self-sufficiency and desperately short of protein. Cereal production covers 71.4 per cent of utilisation[7] and cassava is essentially all domestic,[5] but protein supply of 38.6 g/capita/day is critically low, and animal protein is 7.7 g on the same basis against a world 38.9.[1][2] Both figures cover the five members verifiable against the current FAOSTAT release, 84.2 per cent of the regional population; members run from Gabon at 84.8 g down to the DRC at 27.7 g, of which 3.65 g animal.[1][2] Chad at 74.3 g and the Central African Republic at 67.7 g are carried from a withdrawn 2022 vintage that no current FAO release confirms, and including them yields an all-members upper bound of 43.7 g rather than a verified figure.[1] Undernourishment is 31.2 per cent population-weighted against a world 8.5, reaching 38.5 per cent in the DRC.[3]

The base is fragile beyond current violence. Cassava mosaic disease losses across East and Central Africa are valued at USD 1.9 to 2.7 billion a year, and brown streak has spread across more than 62,000 square kilometres and nine previously unaffected Congolese territories.[27] The Lake Chad catch has fallen from about 220,000 tonnes in the 1960s to about 100,000 in 2000 and 50,000 to 60,000 in the most recent published yields, and the DRC's marine option barely exists at 177 kilometres of coast and a 121 square kilometre fishing zone.[12][39]

We apply two adjustments in opposite directions: up 6 points because FAO food balance sheets exclude wild meat, which at 1.10 million tonnes in 2022 exceeds half again the recorded livestock output and means recorded supply understates actual intake in forest zones;[26] and down 10 points because conflict has degraded nominal capacity since the 2023 balance-sheet year in ways that data cannot yet see: FAO reports the 2026 main-season maize area in the DRC below the five-year average after displacement and restricted field access continuous since late January 2025,[8] 7.8 million people are internally displaced on the WFP and FAO figure of May 2026, which FAO GIEWS puts at about 6.5 million as at February 2026,[8][19] and a further 428,000 are displaced in the Central African Republic.[10] Together the two take the pillar from 44 to 40.

Resource headroom: 56

Quantitative score 68, adjusted down 12 points

This is the strongest per-head endowment in the index and the region can reach almost none of it. Population-weighted renewable internal freshwater is about 10,500 cubic metres per person per year, roughly six times the 1,700 cubic metre stress threshold, from 67,469 in Gabon and 36,785 in the Republic of the Congo to 8,789 in the DRC, with only Chad at 813 below it.[22] Arable land per person reaches 0.349 hectares in the Central African Republic and 0.274 in Chad.[23]

One component of the old score survives the audit intact. Almost nothing in the protein mix consumes a contested primary resource: animal sources supply 19.9 per cent of protein on the five members with a published split, and 23.9 per cent on the wider seven-member basis, against a world 42.0 per cent, so the feed-conversion burden is minimal, and no aquaculture sector in the region is large enough to draw on wild fishmeal.[2][12] Fertiliser application runs from 33.00 kg per hectare of cropland in Gabon to 2.30 in the DRC and 0.03 in the Central African Republic, against a world average of 137.65 kg per hectare of arable land.[4][23] Nothing here is being mined.

The land and water components do not survive it. The methodology credits expansion potential only where the entity has a plausible path to mobilising it, and there is no such path on capital, water banking, input distribution or security, the four fronts tested below. On capital, agriculture, forestry and fishing took 0.57 per cent of all credit extended in the DRC in 2023, USD 47.8 million for 112.8 million people, against an African average of 4.05 per cent and a world 2.15, an agriculture orientation index for credit of 0.039 against parity of 1.00; six of the eight members have no series at all.[49] On water banking, the eight members equipped 85,350 hectares for irrigation in 2024, 0.28 per cent of their 30.75 million hectares of arable land, of which the DRC holds 11,000 and the Central African Republic 100, and the regional total has moved by 8,240 hectares since 2000 while cropland grew by 14.0 million.[50] The 10,500 cubic metres per person is rainfall rather than a stock that can be drawn on in a dry season. On input distribution, the Central African Republic imported 79 tonnes of fertiliser nutrients in 2023, for 5.15 million people, and no member produced any nutrient at all.[4] On security, 7.8 million Congolese are displaced and WFP and FAO stated in May 2026 that many have lost their fields, in a country where agriculture employs 58.5 per cent of the workforce, against 66.1 per cent in the Central African Republic and 71.7 per cent in Chad.[19][56] The documented record is worse than the indicators: the region's single attempt at industrial-scale expansion, the Bukanga Lonzo agro-industrial park launched in 2014 as the pilot for a national programme, absorbed USD 285 million from the Congolese treasury, of which the Inspection Generale des Finances found USD 205 million diverted in a report of November 2020, produced no lasting output, and ended with a former prime minister sentenced to ten years of hard labour on 20 May 2025.[51]

Mobilisation is nonetheless not zero. Regional cropland grew from 21.92 million hectares in 2000 to 35.93 million in 2024, and DRC arable land from 7.22 to 16.06 million hectares.[50] It is the wrong kind of mobilisation on both tests. It runs through hand clearance of forest, with 92.2 per cent of Congolese tree cover loss between 2000 and 2015 linked to small-scale shifting cultivation,[52] which is the mechanism the Central African Forest Initiative commitments exist to stop, Cameroon having signed a letter of intent in October 2024 covering 2025 to 2035 on deforestation-free agriculture by 2035.[36] And it bought nothing per head: cropland per person fell in six of the eight members between 2000 and 2023, from 0.48 to 0.28 hectares in Cameroon, 0.43 to 0.28 in Chad and 0.39 to 0.20 in Gabon, held at 0.52 in the Central African Republic, and rose by 0.01 hectares to 0.17 in the DRC.[50] Twenty-three years of clearance kept pace with population growth and did no more.

The indicators put this pillar at 68: a resource an entity demonstrably cannot develop is excluded rather than merely discounted, and 0.28 per cent irrigation equipment cannot reach the nominal water endowment. We deduct twelve points, a severe realisability deduction, for capital, distribution, security and the documented failure above, and for two stocks the region actually eats from that are being drawn down: wild meat consumption rose by half between 2000 and 2022 on a trajectory the authors treat as requiring urgent management,[26] and the Lake Chad fishery has fallen by roughly three quarters,[39] on a lake NASA reports at less than a tenth of its 1960s extent.[34] That takes the pillar from 68 to 56.

Import exposure: 51

Quantitative score 58, adjusted down 7 points

By volume this is one of the least import-dependent regions, for dietary rather than strategic reasons: a cassava-and-plantain diet does not require a wheat fleet. The regional cereal dependency ratio is 27.0 per cent, food is 4.8 per cent of DRC merchandise imports, and the two largest populations sit at 20.8 and 6.4 per cent.[7][23]

Two exposures cut against that. The first is the small coastal and island states, importing between 84.7 and 100 per cent of their cereals and, in Gabon's case, about 84,912 tonnes of poultry meat a year against 4,122 tonnes of domestic production.[7][29] The second is animal protein generally: the region is a net fish importer by roughly USD 610 million, and Congolese fish imports concentrate in a single product, frozen jack and horse mackerel at USD 152.9 million, or 85 per cent of the USD 179.5 million represented by the ten largest import lines, sourced substantially from Namibia, which sent 14.1 per cent of its seafood exports to the DRC in the first quarter of 2024.[12][33]

We took seven points off for infrastructural concentration, which volume ratios miss entirely. Nearly 80 per cent of the Central African Republic's external trade and about 79 per cent of Chad's imports transit a single 1,400 kilometre corridor from Douala, of which 802 kilometres in Cameroon and 308 in the Central African Republic require urgent upgrading.[25][40] Freight to Bangui and N'Djamena takes two to five weeks at USD 0.35 to 0.40 per tonne-kilometre, more than twice the Southern African average, on a route the World Bank counts among Africa's top twenty priority road segments for food security, moving more than 100 billion kilocalories of food a year.[25] A single corridor failure would expose the 26.5 million people of the two landlocked members, Chad and the Central African Republic.[7] Eastern Congolese supply lines now cross an active front line, and rice and maize prices there have stayed elevated since January 2025 on reduced imports and conflict-inflated transport costs.[8]

Upstream dependence: 53

Quantitative score 59, adjusted down 6 points

Central Africa buys very few imported inputs, for the unflattering reason that its farms buy almost nothing. Fertiliser use is about one eleventh of the world average in Cameroon and one sixtieth in the DRC, 5.60 kg of nutrients per hectare of cropland regionally, and the eight member states together account for 2.6 per cent of African fertiliser nutrient consumption;[4][23] the fertiliser industry's own benchmark puts sub-Saharan African use at 17 kg of nutrients per hectare against a world 135.[35] Cameroon, the largest input market by a distance, imported 225,334 tonnes in 2024, down 1.3 per cent by volume and 12.2 by value.[31] There is no compound-feed sector of scale outside Cameroonian poultry, and no dependence on imported crop genetics for cassava, plantain or yams, which propagate vegetatively from farm-saved material. Chad's livestock economy, at 6 to 7 per cent of GDP on a herd the World Bank puts variously at more than 93 million animals in the 2012-2015 census and over 128 million elsewhere in the same paper, runs on rangeland rather than purchased feed.[24]

This pillar applies one correction of fact and one consistency test. Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Chad produce crude oil, but energy is not partly sovereign on that basis, since crude production conflates with fuel supply only on paper. The African Energy Commission records no oil refinery in the DRC, so all refined products including gasoline and jet fuel are imported,[53] and Cameroon's SONARA at Limbe has refined nothing since the fire of May 2019, with the PARRAS24 rehabilitation launched only in August 2025 and targeted at December 2027; Cameroon imported nearly 1.8 million tonnes of refined product between January and October 2025.[54] The two largest members, 79 per cent of the regional population, import every litre of the diesel that moves the Douala corridor, the Congo river barges and the pumps. FAOSTAT also records nil production of nitrogen, phosphate and potash nutrient in all eight members for 2023, against Nigeria's 1.25 million tonnes of nitrogen and Senegal's 15,599 tonnes of nutrients,[4] so the one purchased input the region does use is wholly imported and, for Chad and the Central African Republic, arrives on the single corridor already scored under import exposure. The indicators put this pillar at 59 on those two findings.

The consistency test is calibration flag R7, the low-input upstream paradox: very poor regions score well on this pillar because they use almost no inputs, which is poverty rather than sovereignty. Central Africa's application rate is very low and it carries none of the domestic manufacturing that would offset that, so we deduct six points, taking the pillar from 59 to 53. Two pieces of substitution capacity are real and are credited within that deduction: the vegetatively propagated staple base needs no imported genetics at all, and LANAVET at Garoua, created by presidential decree on 8 October 1983, manufactures about 25 million doses of veterinary vaccine a year, is the only ISO 17025-accredited veterinary laboratory in Central Africa and exports seven vaccines to seven other African countries.[55] Against them, every modern segment is fully import-dependent: feed is 60 to 70 per cent of Cameroonian poultry production costs on imported soymeal, premixes, veterinary products and parent stock,[28] and Gabon's route to replacing about 84,900 tonnes of imported poultry by January 2027 is an USD 83 million turnkey build with Algeria's Groupe Graine International plus a Turkish feed mill, part of USD 1.38 billion of signed agreements, which converts exposure in finished meat into exposure in genetics, additives and machinery.[29][30] The pillar lands at 53: the larger raw non-dependence is offset by strictly worse input logistics and by the complete absence of domestic manufacture. The region's growth path runs directly through an upstream dependence it does not yet have.

Access and affordability: 17

Quantitative score 17, no adjustment applied

This is the pillar the region fails most consistently, and it is the binding constraint on the overall score. On the World Bank/FAO Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet measure, 79.5 per cent of the population across the seven members with data cannot afford a healthy diet, population-weighted against a world 31.9 per cent, ranging from 37.1 in Gabon to 89.1 in the DRC; Equatorial Guinea has no CoAHD estimate.[41] Undernourishment is 31.2 per cent population-weighted against a world 8.5,[3] and child stunting is 38.9 per cent population-weighted across all eight members, reaching 44.7 in the DRC, though the underlying surveys range from 2011 to 2023.[42] Gabon is the one member where the sources conflict: the Global Nutrition Report profile gives 17.0 per cent, which is the 2012 observation, and we use the 2020 survey estimate of 14.4.[42][43]

Prices add a second failure mode on top of the level failure: Cameroonian maize ran 40 per cent above year-earlier levels in January 2026, while an above-average Chadian harvest cut millet prices by up to 15 per cent in the same season, and households lose on either side of the swing.[8][9] Physical access compounds this for the landlocked members and eastern DRC: the Douala corridor takes two to five weeks and carries nearly 80 per cent of CAR's external trade, while Congolese supply lines now cross an active front line with 7.8 million people displaced.[8][25][40]

Wild meat and in-ground cassava do supply protein outside the priced-diet basket the CoAHD measure prices, cheapening effective access for the rural majority in forest zones in a way a market-price indicator cannot see,[5][26] and they do not reach the urban populations driving the price spikes above. This is not scored as a credit: undernourishment of 31.2 per cent and stunting of 38.9 per cent are severe readings, both are measured on people rather than on prices, and they already observe the nutritional result of that off-market consumption, so crediting it a second time against the affordability share would count it twice. These readings on both weighted outcome indicators put the pillar at 17, and no adjustment applies.

Shock endurance: 31

Quantitative score 26, adjusted up 5 points

FAO's cereal balances record nil stock build-up for five of the eight members in the 2026 marketing year, with only Cameroon at 20,000 tonnes, Chad at 41,000 and Gabon at 8,000 accumulating anything at all, and the DRC is drawing 122,000 tonnes down rather than accumulating.[7] Import cover is 1.69 months in the DRC and 1.60 in the Republic of the Congo, and the last usable reserve figures for Chad, the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea date from the 1990s.[23] Fiscal capacity to outbid on world markets does not exist at USD 556 per head in the Central African Republic, USD 807 in the DRC and USD 1,022 in Chad, while Gabon at USD 8,263 and Equatorial Guinea at USD 6,615 can pay and cannot deliver inland.[23]

The pipeline that substitutes for national reserves is failing in real time. WFP faces a USD 214 million shortfall in the DRC through October 2026; FAO holds USD 10 million against a USD 163 million requirement, and 389,000 children and mothers received nutrition assistance between January and March 2026 against 4.18 million children under five needing acute malnutrition treatment.[19] WFP planned to assist all 2.3 million people in IPC Phase 4 during 2025 and reached 1 million, cut assistance to 600,000 people a month from October 2025 and warned of a complete pipeline break from February 2026.[37][38] Regionally, WFP required over USD 453 million for six months in January 2026 and projected 55 million people in crisis-level hunger or worse for the June to August lean season, with over 3 million in Phase 4, more than double the 1.5 million of 2020;[20] FAO puts the figure at nearly 52.8 million for the narrower 15-country West Africa and Sahel grouping.[21]

The crisis-purchasing-power component, folded into this pillar at roughly a fifth of its quantitative weight, reinforces the position rather than offsetting it. Chad is at high risk of external and overall debt distress on the 2025 joint World Bank-IMF assessment, which overrode a mechanical moderate rating on baseline risk.[45] The Republic of Congo's public debt reached 97.2 per cent of GDP at end-2025 and stays classified in distress, with new external arrears above 1 per cent of GDP from the start of 2025 until February 2026.[47] The DRC's moderate rating rests on weak revenue mobilisation rather than genuine fiscal space, on a joint assessment that dates from 2020, the most recent available.[46] Market access exists in one member and buys nothing useful: the Republic of Congo raised USD 930 million of eurobonds in November and December 2025 at yields of about 13 per cent, with a further USD 700 million announced in February 2026, all of it committed to refinancing maturing domestic debt.[47] Social protection that could scale in a crisis is similarly thin: Cameroon's flagship safety net, a USD 160 million World Bank credit, targets 217,500 beneficiaries against over 2.8 million people in severe food insecurity and a population of 29.9 million, and Chad's national strategy is only now being built out through the third phase of the World Bank's Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program.[11][44][48]

We added five points on documented grounds. The cassava-and-forest system absorbs shocks in ways a stocks-to-use framework cannot see: 55.1 million tonnes of cassava is stored in the ground and harvested on demand rather than warehoused,[5] which is why Congolese calorie supply has not collapsed alongside its cereal market; wild meat consumption rose through the period of institutional breakdown to 1.10 million tonnes;[26] Chad's 2025 harvest came in about 9 per cent above the five-year average with millet down as much as 15 per cent and maize and sorghum down as much as 30 per cent between August and November;[9] and Cameroon's poultry sector rebuilt domestic supply after import restrictions on frozen poultry cuts began in 2005, reaching 25.5 per cent of national meat output on FAOSTAT production data, a completed substitution rather than an announced one.[6][28]

Trajectory

Peace in eastern Congo is worth more than every agricultural programme in the region combined. The DRC is 63 per cent of the population and 40 per cent of protein consumption; a Congolese supply moving from 27.7 to the Cameroonian 71.3 g/capita/day would lift the verified regional figure from 38.6 to about 71, shifting the capacity score further than any conceivable investment elsewhere.[1] Continued conflict pushes the other way, with planted area falling and 7.8 million people displaced.[8][19]

Corridors are second, and unusually for infrastructure the case is quantified: the World Bank's Douala-Bangui project targets 295 kilometres of the worst sections and treats transit time as a food-security variable directly.[25] Cutting Bangui and N'Djamena transit from five weeks towards one would do more for the two landlocked members' effective sovereignty than any change in what they buy.

Third, the import-substitution push is real and points at upstream exposure. Gabon's January 2027 broiler ban with USD 1.38 billion behind it and Cameroon's post-2005 poultry build-out both show that Central African states can displace imported animal protein when they choose to, and both import the genetics, feed additives and machinery to do it.[28][29][30] On present trajectory the region's headroom and upstream scores fall as capacity rises, which is the ordinary price of intensification and worth paying at 7.7 grams of animal protein a day. What would make the trade cheaper is the resource the region has most of and uses least: freshwater at 10,500 cubic metres per person, of which 85,350 hectares' worth is equipped for irrigation across all eight members, and aquaculture at 2 per cent of a fish output that presently delivers 3.3 kilograms a year to each Congolese.[12][22][50] Irrigation and agricultural credit are the two levers that would change the headroom picture, and both are close to their floor.

Country notes

Democratic Republic of the Congo. 112.8 million of the region's 180.5 million people and a critically low protein position at 27.72 g/capita/day with 3.65 g animal, 2.24 kg of meat and 3.3 kg of fish a head, 38.5 per cent undernourishment and 26.5 million people in IPC Phase 3 or above.[1][2][3][6][12][18] It is nonetheless barely import-dependent: 45.2 million tonnes of cassava, 20.8 per cent cereal dependency, food at 4.8 per cent of merchandise imports.[5][7][23] The failure is productive and political, on 2.30 kg of fertiliser per hectare of cropland, 7.8 million displaced on the WFP and FAO May 2026 figure, which FAO GIEWS puts at about 6.5 million as at February 2026, and 1.69 months of import cover.[4][8][19][23]

Cameroon. The functioning agricultural economy and the logistical keystone: 71.3 g/capita/day with 13.99 g animal, 241,562 tonnes of fisheries output at 18.1 kg a head, and meat production that is 25.5 per cent poultry on FAOSTAT 2023 data, built up after Cameroon began restricting imports of frozen poultry cuts in 2005.[1][2][6][13][28] Also the most cereal-exposed large member at 33.8 per cent, with Poland supplying about 40 per cent of Q2 2025 wheat import value, and the sole gateway for Chad and the Central African Republic.[7][25][32] Over 2.8 million, 10 per cent of the analysed population, face severe acute food insecurity in the June to August 2026 lean season, including about 250,000 in Phase 4, which sits badly with an official undernourishment figure of 4.8 per cent.[3][11]

Chad. Diverges from the regional score in both directions. Meat output of 969,686 tonnes for 21.0 million people is the highest per head in the region, livestock is the largest non-oil export at an estimated CFAF 134.7 billion, and cereal dependency is only 6.4 per cent on a 2025 harvest 9 per cent above average.[6][9][24] Its protein supply of 74.3 g/capita/day is carried from 2022 and is not verifiable against any current FAO release.[1] Against that, freshwater of 813 cubic metres per person is the region's only sub-threshold figure, the Lake Chad catch has fallen by roughly three quarters, about 79 per cent of imports pass through Douala, and the country is absorbing about 1.5 million Sudanese refugees.[9][22][39][40]

Central African Republic. The poorest member at USD 556 per head with minimally mechanised agriculture: 0.03 kg of fertiliser per hectare of cropland against 0.349 hectares of arable land per person, and 855 kilometres of paved road out of 24,137.[4][23][25] Its protein supply of 67.7 g/capita/day is carried from 2022 and is not verifiable against any current FAO release.[1] About 2 million people, nearly 30 per cent of those analysed, were in Phase 3 or above between April and August 2026, and 428,000 were displaced as of March.[10] Its 33.3 per cent cereal dependency is modest in ratio and severe in practice because nearly 80 per cent of external trade crosses 1,400 kilometres from Douala.[7][25]

Republic of the Congo. A middle-income oil producer buying 91.6 per cent of its cereals and most of its animal protein: USD 129.0 million of fish imports against USD 5.4 million of exports supports 23.2 kg a head on 61,887 tonnes of domestic output, and 34.8 g of animal protein a day is the region's second highest, bought rather than grown.[2][7][14] Freshwater of 36,785 cubic metres per person makes the endowment real and unreachable, on 8.72 kg of fertiliser per hectare of cropland and 2,000 hectares equipped for irrigation.[4][22][50] Import cover was 1.60 months when last reported in 2021 and no IPC analysis exists.[23]

Gabon. The best-fed and least sovereign member, at 84.8 g/capita/day with 41.34 g animal and 27.0 kg of fish a head.[1][2][15] All of it rests on purchase: 84.7 per cent cereal dependency and poultry imports averaging about 84,900 tonnes a year between 2019 and 2023 against 4,122 tonnes of domestic output, which FAOSTAT puts at 4,187 tonnes for 2023, on an USD 104 million bill in 2024.[6][7][29] Undernourishment rose from 19.7 per cent in 2020 to 25.3 in 2023 despite GDP per head of USD 8,263, which is a distribution failure rather than a supply one.[3][23] Its January 2027 broiler ban, with USD 1.38 billion behind it, is the most consequential policy in the region.[29][30]

Equatorial Guinea. The most extreme import position and the largest data hole. FAO records no domestic cereal production, so dependency is 100 per cent, and per-capita cereal consumption of 32 kg a year is the region's lowest.[7] Fisheries output is 7,227 tonnes against a 291,445 square kilometre exclusive economic zone, the region's largest and least used, and fisheries are 13.01 per cent of agricultural GDP.[17] There is no FAOSTAT food balance sheet entry, so protein supply and undernourishment are unknown, and reserve cover has not been reported since 1996, when it stood at 0.01 months.[23]

Sao Tome and Principe. The smallest member at 240,000 people and in ratio terms the most import-dependent: 96 per cent of cereals imported and food at 31.8 per cent of merchandise imports, the region's highest share.[7][23] Protein supply fell from 60.3 g/capita/day in 2020 to 54.4 in 2023 while undernourishment rose from 15.9 to 17.4 per cent, so both measures are moving the wrong way.[1][3] Agricultural land is 44.8 per cent of territory on 0.017 hectares of arable land per person, the region's lowest.[23] With no FAO GLOBEFISH profile and no IPC analysis, and reserve cover of 3.46 months in 2024 as the only endurance datum,[23] this is the least observed protein position in the assessment.

Country notes

Democratic Republic of the Congo
The region and this assessment are the DRC: 112.8 million of 180.5 million people, and a critically low protein position at 27.72 g/capita/day of which 3.65 g is animal, against a world 92.5 and 38.9. Recorded meat output is 2.24 kg per person per year and fish available for consumption 3.3 kg, on 267,310 tonnes of production that is 98 per cent wild capture. Undernourishment is 38.5 per cent and 26.5 million people, 23 per cent of the analysed population, were in IPC Phase 3 or above between January and June 2026, of whom 3.6 million in Phase 4. Yet the country is not import-dependent in any conventional sense: it grows 45.2 million tonnes of cassava, second in the world, imports only 20.8 per cent of its cereals, and food is 4.8 per cent of merchandise imports. Its failure is productive and political, on 2.30 kg of fertiliser per hectare of cropland, 7.8 million internally displaced people on the WFP and FAO May 2026 figure (FAO GIEWS gives about 6.5 million as at February 2026), 2026 maize area below the five-year average after conflict continuous since late January 2025, 1.69 months of import cover, and 177 km of coast with a 121 km2 fishing zone that leaves Matadi as its only maritime gate.
Cameroon
The region's functioning agricultural economy and its logistical keystone. Protein supply is 71.3 g/capita/day with 13.99 g animal, undernourishment is officially 4.8 per cent, fisheries output is 241,562 tonnes with 18.1 kg per person available for consumption, and meat production of 420,652 tonnes is 25.5 per cent poultry on FAOSTAT 2023 data, built up after Cameroon began restricting imports of frozen poultry cuts in 2005. It is also the most cereal-exposed of the large members at 33.8 per cent, imports 1.87 million tonnes of cereals including 946,000 tonnes of wheat with Poland supplying about 40 per cent of Q2 2025 wheat import value, and buys 225,334 tonnes of fertiliser a year. Douala and Kribi are the sole gateway for Chad and the Central African Republic. Over 2.8 million Cameroonians, 10 per cent of the analysed population, face severe acute food insecurity in the June-August 2026 lean season, including about 250,000 in Phase 4, and local maize in Yaounde ran about 40 per cent above year-earlier levels in January 2026, which sits badly with the official undernourishment figure.
Chad
The region's largest meat producer and its driest member, and the clearest divergence from the regional score in both directions. Meat output of 969,686 tonnes for 21.0 million people is the highest per head in the region, livestock is 6 to 7 per cent of GDP and over 35 per cent of rural wealth and the largest non-oil export at about CFAF 134.7 billion on a census herd of over 128 million animals, and cereal import dependency is only 6.4 per cent on a 2025 harvest of about 3 million tonnes, 9 per cent above the five-year average. Its protein supply of 74.3 g/capita/day is carried from 2022 and is not verifiable against any current FAO release. Against that, renewable internal freshwater is 813 m3 per person, the only member below the 1,700 stress threshold, the Lake Chad catch has fallen from about 220,000 tonnes in the 1960s to 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes, more than 80 per cent of imports transit Cameroon, foreign reserve cover has not been reported since 1994, and the country is absorbing about 1.5 million Sudanese refugees. Acute food insecurity of 1.93 million, 11 per cent of the analysed population, in October-December 2025 is projected to reach 2.98 million in the June-August 2026 lean season, including nearly 264,000 in Phase 4.
Central African Republic
The poorest member at USD 556 per head with minimally mechanised agriculture: 0.03 kg of fertiliser per hectare against 0.349 ha of arable land per person, and 855 km of paved road out of 24,137 km. Protein supply was 67.7 g/capita/day in 2022, a value carried from a withdrawn FAOSTAT vintage and not verifiable against any current FAO release, with undernourishment at 29.8 per cent, and about 2 million people, nearly 30 per cent of the analysed population, were in IPC Phase 3 or above between April and August 2026 including 262,000 in Phase 4. Cereal import dependency of 33.3 per cent is modest in ratio and severe in practice because nearly 80 per cent of external trade crosses 1,400 km from Douala at two to five weeks and USD 0.35 to 0.40 per tonne-kilometre, so imported rice ran 13 per cent above year-earlier levels in May 2026 while local maize fell 8 per cent. 428,000 people were internally displaced as of March 2026 and no usable reserve figure has been published since 1994.
Republic of the Congo
A middle-income oil producer that buys almost all its cereals and most of its animal protein. Cereal import dependency is 91.6 per cent, with 277,000 tonnes of wheat and 125,000 tonnes of rice imported against 30,000 tonnes of domestic cereal production, and food is 21.2 per cent of merchandise imports. Protein supply of 58.9 g/capita/day is below the regional leaders but its 34.8 g of animal protein is the second highest in the region, bought rather than grown: fish imports were USD 129.0 million in 2022 against USD 5.4 million of exports, supporting 23.2 kg of fish per person from 61,887 tonnes of domestic output. Renewable freshwater of 36,785 m3 per person is the second highest in the region and agricultural land is 31.2 per cent of territory, so the endowment is real and unreachable: fertiliser use is 8.72 kg per hectare of cropland and 2,000 hectares of the country are equipped for irrigation. Import cover was 1.60 months when last reported in 2021 and no IPC analysis exists.
Gabon
The best-fed and least sovereign member. Protein supply of 84.8 g/capita/day with 41.34 g animal is the highest in the region and close to the world average, fish available for consumption is 27.0 kg per person, and renewable internal freshwater is 67,469 m3 per person, the highest in the index bracket. All of it rests on purchase: cereal import dependency is 84.7 per cent on 261,000 tonnes of imports against 47,000 tonnes of coarse grain production, and poultry imports averaged about 84,912 tonnes a year between 2019 and 2023 against 4,122 tonnes of domestic output, an import bill of USD 104 million in 2024. Undernourishment has risen from 19.7 per cent in 2020 to 25.3 per cent in 2023 even as GDP per head reached USD 8,263, which is a distribution failure rather than a supply one. The January 2027 broiler import ban, backed by USD 1.38 billion of signed poultry investment including an USD 83 million Algerian-built complex targeting 72,000 tonnes, is the most consequential policy in the region and converts import exposure into feed, genetics and machinery exposure.
Equatorial Guinea
The region's most extreme import position and its largest data hole. FAO records no domestic cereal production at all, so cereal import dependency is 100 per cent on 66,000 tonnes of wheat and rice, and per-capita cereal consumption of 32 kg a year is the lowest in the region. Fisheries output is 7,227 tonnes against a 291,445 km2 exclusive economic zone, the largest in the region and by far the least used, with fish imports of USD 24.7 million against USD 260,000 of exports and fisheries contributing 13.01 per cent of agricultural GDP. There is no FAOSTAT Food Balance Sheet entry, so protein supply and undernourishment are unknown; foreign reserve import cover has not been reported since 1996, when it stood at 0.01 months. Fertiliser use computed from FAOSTAT is 7.13 kg per hectare of cropland. GDP per head of USD 6,615 buys food that 1.9 million people cannot grow on 0.029 ha of arable land each.
Sao Tome and Principe
The smallest member at 240,000 people and, in ratio terms, the most import-dependent economy in the region: 96 per cent of cereals imported on 24,000 tonnes against 1,000 tonnes of domestic production, and food at 31.8 per cent of merchandise imports, the highest share in the region. Protein supply fell from 60.3 g/capita/day in 2020 to 54.4 in 2023 with 21.3 g animal, and undernourishment rose from 15.9 to 17.4 per cent over the same period, so the trend is adverse on both measures. Agricultural land is 44.8 per cent of territory, the highest share in the region, but arable land per person is 0.017 ha, the lowest, and fertiliser use computed from FAOSTAT is 6.26 kg per hectare of cropland. There is no FAO GLOBEFISH profile and no IPC analysis, and reserve import cover of 3.46 months for 2024 is the only endurance datum available, so the island's protein position is the least observed in this assessment.

Sources

  1. Food Balance Sheets (FBS): protein supply quantity, g/capita/day, Grand Total (element 674), data and · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2023))
  2. Food Balance Sheets (FBS): protein supply quantity for the Animal Products and Vegetal Products items, data · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2023))
  3. Prevalence of undernourishment, SDG indicator 2.1.1: annual FAO estimates mirrored by Our World in Data, with three-year averages cross-checked against the FAOSTAT Food Security data · FAO, via Our World in Data; FAOSTAT Food Security domain (2025 (annual data 2023; three-year averages to 2023-2025))
  4. Fertiliser nutrient agricultural use (Inputs_FertilizersNutrient) and cropland area, data; kilograms of nutrients per hectare of cropland computed by PSI · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2023))
  5. Production: Crops and livestock products, cassava fresh, production quantity, data · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2023))
  6. Production: Crops and livestock products, Meat Total and Meat Poultry, production quantity, data · FAOSTAT (2025 release (data 2023))
  7. Cereal supply and demand balances for sub-Saharan African countries: situation as at June 2026 · FAO GIEWS (2026)
  8. GIEWS Country Brief: Democratic Republic of the Congo, reference date 24 June 2026 · FAO GIEWS (2026)
  9. GIEWS Country Brief: Chad, reference date 27 January 2026 · FAO GIEWS (2026)
  10. GIEWS Country Brief: Central African Republic, reference date 15 July 2026 · FAO GIEWS (2026)
  11. GIEWS Country Brief: Cameroon, reference date 7 April 2026 · FAO GIEWS (2026)
  12. GLOBEFISH Market Profile 2023: Democratic Republic of the Congo (compiled March 2026) · FAO GLOBEFISH (2026)
  13. GLOBEFISH Market Profile 2023: Cameroon · FAO GLOBEFISH (2026)
  14. GLOBEFISH Market Profile 2023: Congo · FAO GLOBEFISH (2026)
  15. GLOBEFISH Market Profile 2023: Gabon · FAO GLOBEFISH (2026)
  16. GLOBEFISH Market Profile 2023: Chad · FAO GLOBEFISH (2026)
  17. GLOBEFISH Market Profile 2023: Equatorial Guinea · FAO GLOBEFISH (2026)
  18. Democratic Republic of the Congo: Acute Food Insecurity Projection Update for January-June 2026, snapshot published 12 May 2026 · Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) (2026)
  19. Millions trapped in deepening hunger crisis in the DRC as needs far outpace humanitarian response (joint release, 14 May 2026) · WFP and FAO (2026)
  20. Humanitarian aid cuts push millions deeper into hunger amid rising violence and population displacement in West and Central Africa (16 January 2026) · World Food Programme (2026)
  21. West Africa and the Sahel: nearly 52.8 million people could face acute food insecurity during the 2026 lean season · FAO Regional Office for Africa (2026)
  22. World Development Indicators: renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (ER.H2O.INTR.PC, from FAO AQUASTAT) · World Bank (2026 (data 2022))
  23. World Development Indicators: arable land per person, agricultural land share, fertilizer consumption, food imports share of merchandise imports, total reserves in months of imports, GDP per capita, agriculture value added share of GDP · World Bank (2026 (data 1994-2025 as cited))
  24. Chad's Livestock: Securing Cross-Border Value-Chain Post-COVID-19 (Policy Research Working Paper 10830) · World Bank (2024)
  25. Douala-Bangui Economic Corridor Project (P513683), project appraisal document · World Bank (2025)
  26. Increase in wild animal consumption across Central Africa (Bessone et al.), DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-10422-w; figures as stated in the CIFOR-ICRAF release · Nature (2026)
  27. Expansion and impact of cassava brown streak and cassava mosaic diseases in Africa: a review (Chikoti and Tembo) · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (2022)
  28. Poultry production in Cameroon (used for the 2005 start of frozen-poultry import restrictions and feed at 60 to 70 per cent of production costs; its undated 42 per cent meat-production share is not supported by FAOSTAT and is not used) · SNRD Africa (GIZ Sector Network Rural Development Africa) (2023)
  29. Gabon ramps up training for 40,000 poultry workers ahead of 2027 broiler import ban · Ecofin Agency (2025)
  30. Gabon signs US$1.38 billion poultry investment deals ahead of 2027 import ban · Food Business Middle East and Africa (2026)
  31. Cameroon's fertilizer imports fall in 2024 as push for local production gains ground · Business in Cameroon (2025)
  32. Cameroon wheat import value up 8.4% in Q2 2025 despite modest sourcing shifts · Milling Middle East and Africa (2025)
  33. Namibia posts increase in Q1 2024 seafood export value, steps up quota compliance efforts · SeafoodSource (2024)
  34. The Ups and Downs of Lake Chad (used only for lake surface area; it carries no fisheries catch figures) · NASA Earth Observatory (2017)
  35. Food security in Africa: fertiliser use (states sub-Saharan African consumption of 17 kg of nutrients per hectare of cropland against a world average of 135 kg/ha; it carries no Central African regional share, so that figure is now computed from FAOSTAT) · International Fertilizer Association (IFA) (2024)
  36. Towards deforestation-free agriculture: CAFI and Cameroon sign 2025-2035 Letter of Intent (signed 8 October 2024) · Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) (2024)
  37. WFP warns that six critical operations are facing significant food aid pipeline breaks by year-end (15 October 2025); source of the DRC figures of 2.3 million planned in IPC Phase 4, 1 million reached, the reduction to 600,000 from October and the pipeline break looming in February 2026 · World Food Programme (2025)
  38. Hunger surges in DRC's conflict-hit Eastern provinces yet funding gaps force WFP to scale back support (7 November 2025); states the cut to 600,000 people per month from October and a total pipeline break from February/March 2026 as a prospective risk · World Food Programme (2025)
  39. Lake drying and livelihood dynamics in Lake Chad: unravelling the mechanisms, contexts and responses (Okpara, Stringer and Dougill), Ambio 45(7), pp. 781-795; source of the Lake Chad catch series of about 220,000 tonnes in the 1960s, about 100,000 tonnes in 2000 and recent yields of 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes · Ambio (peer-reviewed) (2016)
  40. Cameroon-Chad Transport Corridor Project (P167798), project appraisal document; states that about 79 per cent of Chad's imports pass through the Port of Douala and that about 80 per cent of Central African transit traffic uses the Douala-N'Djamena and Douala-Bangui corridors · World Bank (2022)
  41. Share of population unable to afford a healthy diet: Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD) indicator, as mirrored by Our World in Data · World Bank and FAO, via Our World in Data (2026 (data 2024))
  42. Share of children under 5 who suffer from stunting: UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME), as mirrored by Our World in Data · UNICEF, WHO and World Bank, via Our World in Data (2011-2023 as stated per member)
  43. Country Nutrition Profile: Gabon, giving stunting at 17.0 per cent and citing the JME Expanded Database accessed 16 November 2022; cited here only as the conflicting source superseded by the 2020 JME survey estimate of 14.4 per cent used in scoring · Global Nutrition Report (2022 vintage as cited on the profile page)
  44. World Population Dashboard: country population estimates, 2025 · United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) (2025)
  45. Chad: Request for a Four-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility, Debt Sustainability Analysis, IMF Staff Country Reports Volume 2025 Issue 236 · International Monetary Fund (2025)
  46. Democratic Republic of the Congo: Joint Bank-Fund Debt Sustainability Analysis (moderate risk of external and overall debt distress, weak revenue mobilisation cited as the constraint on fiscal space) · World Bank and International Monetary Fund (2020; the most recent DRC DSA available)
  47. Republic of Congo: Post-Financing Assessment, Press Release, Staff Report and Statement by the Executive Director, IMF Staff Country Reports Volume 2026 Issue 078; source of total public debt at 97.2 per cent of GDP at end-2025 (58.9 points domestic), the classification of external and overall debt as in distress though sustainable, new external arrears above 1 per cent of GDP from 2025 to February 2026 including CFAF 60 billion to bilateral and multilateral lenders and CFAF 87 billion to commercial creditors, and the USD 930 million of November-December 2025 eurobonds priced at about 13 per cent plus the USD 700 million announced in February 2026 at 11.625 per cent · International Monetary Fund (2026)
  48. World Bank to support more than 200,000 vulnerable Cameroonians to access social safety nets and livelihood opportunities (Adaptive Safety Nets and Economic Inclusion Project, USD 160 million IDA credit, 217,500 direct beneficiaries); Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program, Chad country page, for the third-phase (2025-2030) build-out · World Bank (2022 (Cameroon); 2025 (Chad programme phase))
  49. Investment: Credit to Agriculture, data; Share of Total Credit, Value US$ and Agriculture orientation index elements for the item Credit to Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing. Source of the DRC's 0.57 per cent credit share, USD 47.8 million of credit and orientation index of 0.039 for 2023, of the African and world comparators, and of the finding that six of the eight members have no series at all · FAOSTAT (2026 release (data to 2024; members cited at 2023 and Gabon at 2012))
  50. Inputs: Land Use, data; Area, Area per capita, Cropland, Arable land and Land area equipped for irrigation. Source of the regional irrigation-equipped area of 85,350 hectares for 2024, the cropland series from 21.92 million hectares in 2000 to 35.93 million in 2024, and the cropland-per-person series by member · FAOSTAT (2026 release (data 1961-2024, cited at 2000, 2010, 2023 and 2024))
  51. Former DR Congo prime minister gets 10 years for embezzlement (21 May 2025), for the USD 285 million disbursed for the Bukanga Lonzo agro-industrial park and the sentences of 20 May 2025; and Africanews, DRC: Matata Ponyo tried in default for embezzlement, for the Inspection Generale des Finances report of November 2020 finding USD 205 million of that sum diverted and for the park's location 250 km south-east of Kinshasa. · Anadolu Agency; Africanews (2025 (Anadolu); 2024 last update (Africanews))
  52. New map helps distinguish between cyclical farming and deforestation in the Congo Basin (16 January 2018), citing University of Maryland GLAD laboratory tree cover loss data for 2000 to 2015; source of the finding that 92.2 per cent of Congolese tree cover loss is linked to small-scale shifting cultivation, that 63 per cent occurred inside the existing rural complex and 13 per cent was expansion into forest, and that the rural complex expands at about 1 per cent a year. The globalforestwatch.org address now redirects to globalnaturewatch.org · Global Forest Watch (World Resources Institute) (2018 (data 2000-2015))
  53. Democratic Republic of Congo country energy page; states that there is no oil refinery in the country and that all refined products including jet fuel and gasoline have to be imported, on an energy balance whose crude production figure is for 2020 · African Energy Commission (AFREC), African Union (2026 (energy balance data 2018-2020))
  54. Cameroon pledges to rebuild SONARA by 2027 (13 October 2025); source of SONARA's shutdown following the 2019 fire, the PARRAS24 rehabilitation launched in August 2025, the December 2027 completion target and the restored capacity of 2.1 million tonnes of crude a year. The Business in Cameroon report of nearly 1.8 million tonnes of refined product imported between January and October 2025 is cited from the same reporting · African Energy Council; Business in Cameroon (2025)
  55. Cameroon's veterinary authorities fight off ruminant disease using nuclear derived techniques; source of LANAVET's creation by presidential decree on 8 October 1983, its output of about 25 million vaccine doses a year, its ISO 17025 accreditation as the only such veterinary laboratory in Central Africa, and its export of seven vaccines to Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana and Nigeria. The page carries no publication date; the 2021 year is taken from a third-party mirror's archive path and is recorded in data_gaps as unconfirmed · International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (2021 (dating unconfirmed, see data_gaps))
  56. World Development Indicators: employment in agriculture as a share of total employment (SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS), modelled ILO estimate · World Bank (2026 (data 2025))

What we could not measure

Chad and the Central African Republic have no verifiable current protein-supply figure; the last reliable reading for both dates to 2007-2009, the largest gap in this assessment. Equatorial Guinea has no food balance data at all and sits outside every regional protein calculation. Crisis-level food insecurity is counted for only four of the region's eight countries, so the 34.3 million figure is a floor, not a full regional total. Stunting readings span twelve years, from 2011 in Equatorial Guinea to 2023 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Published August 2026 ·How scores are produced