Determinants of Food Security In Sub-Saharan Africa: Effect Of ICT And Financial Improvement

Several issues have been identified as reasons for food security in Sub-Saharan African countries but the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) as well as financial improvement on food security cannot be ascertained. Sequel to this, the study investigates the influence of ICT and financial improvement on food security. The study selected 39 sub–Saharan African Countries to carry out the investigation. The study employs System GMM to take care of unobserved heterogeneity and potential endogeneity of the exogenous variables. Variables such as fixed broadband subscriptions, fixed telephone subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, and secure internet servers are used to capture ICT; domestic credit to the private sector is used to capture financial improvement; while the food production index is used to capture the food security using data from year 2000 to 2020. The empirical results show that fixed telephone subscriptions is positive and statistically influence the food production index (food security), while its interaction with domestic credit to the private sector also significantly influences food security. This shows that the effect of change in the fixed telephone subscriptions has a positive impact on food security sequel to an increase in domestic credit to the private sector. The same can be said of mobile cellular subscriptions, the effect of change in mobile cellular subscriptions has a positive impact on food security as a result of an increase in domestic credit to the private sector. It is recommended that telephone and mobile cellular subscriptions should be improved to improve food production because information can easily be disseminated via the medium. Domestic credit to the private sector should also be increased in other to finance and improve food production.