Virtual Inaugural Meeting of the Task Force on the Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition in Africa

Transcription of the Director-General’s Opening Remarks at the Virtual Inaugural Meeting of the Task Force on the Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition in Africa

Tuesday 5 May 2020; 14:30-16:30 (GMT +2)

 

Colleagues, thank you Madame, Her Excellency Josefa Sacko, my dear sister.

First, congratulations to all the Members of the African Union (AU) and also Her Excellency Angela Thoko Didiza, Minister of South Africa.

We are moving fast, after only less than three weeks and now we have come to this meeting. You know, I am always willing to have action following the political willingness and commitment, so I am honoured to join the African Union Commission, as Co-Chair of this Task Force.

We had a successful meeting three weeks ago, when FAO and AU gathered with African ministers for agriculture and number of partners, and discussed COVID-19 and its effect on African food security. As I said before this meeting, this morning I had a very good meeting, a successful meeting, with the new Commissioner of the European Union for Development and Partnership. Last week, I also had a meeting with the EU Commissioner of Humanitarian Crisis Management, and with the Commissioner of Trade. At each meeting, I always highlight and focus on how to help Africa, the Small Island Developing States, land-locked countries and vulnerable regions. I already said that, since I came to office last August with the Hand-in-Hand Initiative, and we can use this opportunity to scale up, speed up the process to accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and not to forget that these are our real long-term goals.

The ministers Declaration committed to two important actions, these include the support in access to food, nutrition, and minimize the disruption to movement of essential people, keep borders open on the continent for food and the agricultural trade. The Task Force we are inaugurating today, will oversee the implementation of key actions, identified in the ministers’ Declaration.

I welcome our partners. Especially the European Union (EU), the African Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank (WB), IFAD, WFP, the African Union Development Agency (NEPAD), and others. We want to build a more inclusive approach to help Africa, to help the vulnerable regions to keep food security more visible and more sustainable.

Thank you friends, for agreeing and being a part of the important Task Force in this critical time. The Task Force is an essential platform for all of us to scale up advocacy, mobilizing partnerships and resources, but also, most importantly, to provide coherent and pragmatic support to address challenges to food security and to nutrition on the African continent, caused by the pandemic.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us were concerned that issues of food, security and livelihoods would not attract the attention that they deserved. Thanks to the collective effort and ramping up of advocacy, knowledge and data sharing, food security now holds a priority position on the global agenda of the COVID-19 response strategies at all levels. From UN Headquarters, to the private sector, and of course, publicly, ministers and relevant key players.

Even this morning I got news, a very strong Declaration from retired internationally important figures. From a Prime Minister, or a President, or Royal Family Members. They are really concerned how to prevent the health crisis turning into a food crisis. That is why I always keep saying, from day one, in early February and March, we had meetings with the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) and the G20 Summit. Then the G20 Agriculture Ministers Meeting, with the EU, the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Bill Gates Foundation, with AU, with the all key players. You name it. Therefore, we must match this heightened advocacy with more and stronger action on the ground. We need to build on programmes that are already in place. Already much is happening, and I am pleased to note that solidarity and collaboration is at the forefront of each.

We need to continue to do more and urgently, because agriculture is time consuming and it takes several months before you see a harvest. Therefore, that is the way, agricultural people are early birds, we wake up at dawn, sunrise or before sunrise, and then we start sowing, working hard, and harvesting. Sometimes, it even takes three, four, five months, so we keep our patience, we maintain continued action to do more.

The context of the COVID-19 has changed and accelerated the pace of how we should adapt to new ways of working and collaborating. Somehow we now have more efficiency, with less cost. I just said to the Ambassador, we are now used to looking at faces on the screen to talk, at the beginning it was not so easy, we wanted to see, dear Ambassador Josefa Sacko, person to person. However, now when I see her on screen, your smile also touches me. That is real, the dialogue between people through machines. It is a psychological change, we are adapting. Therefore, leveraging new opportunities, adapting smart approaches, such as innovation, digital agriculture, and digital food.

I want to say digital food, the people thought that maybe you can eat digital food. No, digital agriculture and digital food means digital governance of agriculture and food business. Furthermore, how to develop a new business model related to food and agriculture, and how to stress and improve efficiency, all the activities, and even the governance and society. Because we are dealing with rural areas, rural areas are also related to the agriculture related to agriculture, food production, food processing, and food consumers. Therefore, for digital agriculture and food, we must use the new innovative approach to transform agricultural food to the new world. That new world is the digital world. We will never come back again, even after the pandemic. I think we need innovative recovery after the pandemic.

Digitalization for agriculture, for food and for rural development. That is our new business model, our new normal.

That is how we contribute to the objective of defending public health and also protecting the food supply chains, food security, food nutrition and health, together, as a holistic approach, and not individually divided from health, to food, to rural development. No, we want to keep that as a holistic approach.

All this to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. COVID-19 is some kind of enemy, but a lot stimulated us to react, our immune system like the body, and our antibody system for rural development.

Once again, I appreciate all your commitment and I look forward to successful first meeting of the Task Force and we will see after several months, or later, we will look back at what we should be proud of what we have done during this pandemic period.

Thank you.