It's hard to know how ordinary Africans feel about issues such as health care and education. First, the continent is huge and people have different concerns depending on where they live. (This may be an obvious statement but you'd be surprised how many non-Africans see the continent as one big generic mess). Second, polling—by newspapers or foundations—is rare even within many African nations let alone across the continent.

Over the past half decade though, the folks at Afrobarometer, which is run by Michigan State University, the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, and the Centre for Democratic Development in Ghana, have done a series of fascinating surveys on what Africans feel about some of the biggest issues they face.

The latest pan-African survey covers 18 countries including Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. There are some interesting results. While support for democracy remains high, satisfaction with the practice of democracy is way down—especially in Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

On the health front, Africans rank health care as their third most important problem behind unemployment and food shortages. Health care was second in Afrobarometer's first survey six years ago and while it has slipped to third concern about health issues has actually risen from 17% of correspondents in 2000 to 27% today, perhaps, say the survey's authors, because of rising awareness of HIV/AIDS.

But the issue which is seen as the fastest rising problem in Africa is food shortages and hunger. Concern about food shortages rose from fifth to second place "on the people's agenda" this time around. The survey's authors conclude that "Africans see food security as the continent's most rapidly escalating problem".

Check out the latest fascinating figures at Afrobarometer's website. . .

—Simon Robinson