Harness Collective Efforts to Urgently Tackle Food Insecurity, Stakeholders Task African Leaders

African leaders have been urged to harness collective efforts to urgently and fully tackle food insecurity on the continent. The development was contained in the 2022 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR22) launched on Tuesday, in Kigali, Rwanda, at the ongoing Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Summit themed, “Accelerating African Food Systems Transformation.” The document, a yearly publication by AGRA, also outlined six megatrends shaping the development of agrifood systems in Africa that warrant greater attention by stakeholders. According to the document, African leaders should harness collective efforts, shared responsibility, greater stakeholders’ engagement, as well as rally political will to achieve food systems’ transformation on the continent. Furthermore, the document pointed out the investment gap required to trigger and/or sustain Africa’s agro-food transformation, reflecting on the requisite human, institutional and systemic capacities and capabilities that are required to achieve the transformation at scale. Speaking, AGRA’s President, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, explained that a combination of after-effects of the pandemic and the Ukraine conflict led to increase in food prices, thus worsening the food insecurity in Africa. Her words: “The AASR22 reflects on key action areas required to tackle the most urgent and important areas in response to these challenges. “There is an urgent need to repurpose food policies to address the emerging challenges affecting conditions, outcomes and behaviour of our food systems, without compromising the economic, social and environmental fundamentals,” Kalibata added. On his part, a Research Professor at Cornell University and one of the authors of the report, Dr. Ed Mabaya, observed that the journey towards food and nutritional security for Africa has a clear destination, which is zero hunger. “Thanks to many strategy documents, we have reasonable consensus on the roadmap – sustainable intensification and a food systems approach,” he added. Meanwhile, the AASR22 challenged African governments to assume a leadership role in food systems transformation as a national security, poverty alleviation and rural development agenda that cuts across various institutions, while calling for locally led integrated actions that bring together key sectors of the economy that are central to food systems, including health, environment, agriculture and education.