African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF)

Plenary Keynote Intervention

Mr QU Dongyu, FAO Director-General

African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), Wednesday 9 September 2020

As prepared

 

 

Excellencies,

Distinguished participants,

Dear Colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

1. I am very pleased to see you all safe and healthy on this important virtual conference.

2. Urgency and extraordinary collaboration must characterize all of our discussions on the issue of nutrition and agri-food systems in Africa, if we are to overcome the region’s enormous challenges of ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people, all year round, and eradicating all forms of malnutrition. No hunger and no one behind!

3. Let me share with you some of the main findings of this year’s State of Food Security and Nutrition report (SOFI) that FAO produced together with IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.

4. The SOFI report paints a worrisome picture of the food security situation in Africa.

5. The Africa region is significantly off track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, especially eliminating hunger by 2030.

6. Even before COVID-19, in 2019 alone there were 235 million hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa.

7. Over 600 million people were experiencing moderate or severe-acute food insecurity, meaning they did not have regular access to nutritious and sufficient food.

8. Africa has the highest prevalence of undernourishment - more than twice the global average - and the second highest number of undernourished people.

9. It also has the fastest growth in the number of hungry people compared to other regions.

10. COVID-19 and other pressures on food supply chains, such as Fall Armyworm and Desert Locust, are threatening food security, nutrition, and economic prospects in Africa in unprecedented ways.

11. There are considerable risks that the current public health crisis could become a food crisis, further increasing the number of people facing acute hunger, if we do not act to protect and enhance the resilience of the most vulnerable population.

12. The SOFI 2020 report goes into details about one of the main drivers of this rising hunger: namely, that nutritious and healthy food is beyond the purchasing power of many Africans.

13. About 829 million people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford a healthy diet.

14. In some countries of the region the cost of healthy diets is between 4 and 7 times higher than average food expenditures.

15. We expect that the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic could increase these numbers and make the situation much worse.

16. FAO’s preliminary estimates of the pandemic’s impact on food security and nutrition indicate that globally an additional 83 to 132 million people may be undernourished this year.

Ladies and gentlemen,

17. To overcome these enormous challenges, we must work together in new ways.

18. It is unacceptable that at a time when the world produces enough food to feed everyone, close to a billion people in Africa cannot even afford the cheapest healthy diets.

19. Agri-Food systems must be transformed to not only feed a growing population, but also provide healthy, affordable diets for everyone in a way that is economically profitable and environmentally sustainable.

20. Such a transformational trajectory must be driving increased productivity by application of new technologies and enabling policies for the cost of nutritious foods to be affordable.

21. We must address the factors that are driving up the cost of nutritious foods throughout the food supply chain, within the food environment and the policies that shape innovation, trade, public expenditure and investments.

22. There are no one-size-fits all solutions, but countries need more nutrition-sensitive investments and policy actions all along the food supply chain to lower the cost of nutritious foods and reduce food losses.

23. Mechanisms to improve income opportunities, and create decent employment and nutrition-sensitive social protection programmes will be critical to increase affordability of and access to healthy diets by vulnerable populations, including the rural poor. 

24. An enabling policy environment that fosters individual and social behaviors towards healthy diets is critical.

25. We also need to refocus research and development (R and D) efforts on fruits and vegetables to increase productivity, affordability and marketing channels with cold chain, and reduce loss and waste aiming at reasonable lower prices.

26. In particular, we need to tap into the potential of traditional African leafy green vegetables which are promising in terms of micro-nutrient contents but which are under-researched.

27. The SOFI report also found that public investments in road networks in Africa could help raise the affordability of nutrient adequate diets by reducing costs of irrigation and transport.

28. Next year’s UN Food Systems Summit is an opportunity to supercharge efforts towards inclusive, affordable and healthy food systems.

29. As we are witnessing every day, the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing everyone to live and work in new normal ways.

30. FAO is using a comprehensive COVID-19 Response and Recovery Program, to support countries in preventing a food emergency during and after the pandemic, while working on medium to long-term development responses for food security and nutrition.

31. In responding to the crisis, we need to ‘build back better’ through higher productivity, more diversification, greater resilience, with nutrition-smart interventions and by supporting a vibrant private sector, including Small to Medium Enterprises, to create quality jobs.

32.  In short, building back better requires a food systems approach by better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life for all.

33. The agri-food system transformation requires innovation with the enhanced use of technologies and digitalization of agriculture to remodel the challenges.

34. It also requires partnerships that are bigger, deeper and wider than ever before.

35. Through FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative which is owned and led by members, we are collaborating with member countries to connect them with big data and donor partners.

36. By accelerating agricultural transformation and sustainable rural development, the Initiative works to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.

37. FAO looks forward to collaborating with you, to make healthy diets affordable for everyone in Africa.

38. Let us work together towards achieving the food security (hunger-free world) and nutrition targets of the 2030 Agenda, and beyond that, towards Africa’s Agenda 2063.  

Thank you.