FAO statement at Group of Friends on Climate Change Meeting – Towards COP27: Climate change and resilience of food systems in Africa

Good morning. I wish to thank the Ambassadors of France and Morocco and the members of the Group of Friends on Climate Change for inviting FAO to this important meeting. 

As we sit here today, our world is facing complex challenges that are increasing world hunger and inequality and impacting negatively the most vulnerable populations.

Look at Africa, for example. While 10 percent of the world’s population was undernourished in 2021, hunger affected over 20% of the population in Africa. 

Acute food insecurity is even more worrisome. Globally, the latest FAO-WFP 

Hunger Hotspots Report forecasts that acute food insecurity will likely worsen in 19 countries or situations until next January. 

This includes 11 African countries and the Sahel region. 

Four of the six countries under “highest alert” are in Africa: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan. 

Afghanistan and Yemen are also on this list. 

Together, almost 1 million people are facing famine in these 6 countries and catastrophic conditions, if no action is taken.

The main drivers of food insecurity are conflict/insecurity, economic slowdowns, and extreme weather events.

All of these drivers are present in Africa. And the impact of weather extremes is of particular concern in the coming months.

The Hotspot Report forecasts: that unprecedented, consecutive drought will likely worsen food-security in Somalia, eastern and southern Ethiopia, and northern and eastern Kenya. 

Severe drought has already pushed many people to the brink of starvation, destroying crops and killing livestock necessary for their survival. 

Similarly, there are grave concerns about flooding, which is already causing extensive damage in Africa, in particular in West Africa.

The La Niña conditions will likely add to crop and livestock losses, especially in Western and Eastern Africa.

The impacts of climate change on agrifood systems and livelihoods are evident.

On one side, we know that agrifood systems are responsible for about one third of Greenhouse Gas emissions.  

On the other side, nature based solutions can provide 37 % of cost effective climate change mitigation needed between now and 2030 to hold global warming below 2 degrees.

This potential was finally recognized at COP 23 in 2017 with the adoption of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture that provided a road map to address issues related to agriculture in a holistic manner 

At COP26, progress on the Koronivia Joint Work was reviewed and Governments recognized the importance of land use sectors for mitigation and adaptation, including through adopting the Glasgow Leader’s declaration on Forest and Land Use, and the Global Methane Pledge.

FAO welcomes these developments and supports member countries through a wide range of programmes in addressing both climate change mitigation and adaptation.

So what do we do?

As a first step, FAO member countries adopted, in 2022 a new Climate Change Strategy. 

We support FAO member countries’ in the enhancement of their NDCs and we closely collaborate with the NDC Partnership at the country level.

We also support our members to access climate finance, and to scale up climate investment in the agricultural sectors, in partnership with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) the Adaptation Fund and other donors.

We provide access to innovative tools, such as Collect Earth, Climate Change Knowledge Hub (CC-Hub) and The Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model. All these tools are integrated in the Hand-in-Hand geospatial platform that combines all critical climate, environmental and agricultural information. 

FAO also promotes sustainable solutions such as Agroecology, climate-smart agriculture, circular bio-economy, soil organic carbon mapping and climate risk management.

With regards to climate risk management, FAO calls for the blending of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to close major funding gaps for prevention, anticipation and preparedness and to ensure that the resources go to the most at risk, vulnerable and exposed communities, particularly in fragile contexts with high food insecurity that are widely neglected for climate financing. 

While it is essential to continue boosting local capacities to respond to climate related disasters, the international community must provide resources to facilitate a shift from reacting to crises to preventing and anticipating climate-related disasters and crises. 

In this regard, we are developing and rolling out anticipatory action linked to early warning systems in the food and agriculture sectors.

Let me turn to our plans for COP27. 

This COP is important because it will be held on the African continent, and we firmly believe that “Africa” is a key player in the sustainable transformation of agrifood systems,

FAO will support several presidency initiatives relevant to our mandate, including the Food and Agriculture Initiative for Sustainable Transformation (FAST), the Initiative on Climate Action and Nutrition (I-CAN), and the Global Waste Initiative 50 by 2050.

In addition, FAO will host a number of stakeholder discussions in the first ever Food and Agriculture Pavilion, being organized with partners such as Rockefeller Foundation and CGIAR.

In closing, the transformation of agrifood systems offer essential solutions to many of the current complex challenges in the world.

But we are running out of time: agrifood systems must urgently transition and transform from being a problem to becoming a climate solution, while ensuring food security, a healthy environment and wellbeing for all. This includes in contexts of conflict and fragility of food crisis situations. 

FAO looks forward to continuing working together with Member Countries, the UN family and other stakeholders to support solutions to the many interlinked challenges we face as a global community.

I thank you for your attention.