EGM on SDG 2: Elizabeth Nsimadala Statement

Elizabeth Nsimadala

President of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, Board of World Farmers Organisation and of the Pan Africa Farmers Organization (PAFO)

Session 4: SDG 2 Target 2.4 - Ensure Sustainable Food Production Systems

Government is a very important actor and very significant if this is to be achieved; the contribution by governments in terms of public policy development and implementation including the domestication of key global and regional commitments; annual budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector; the public-private partnerships it is able to attract; and its sphere of influence to the public on this subject matter – we have to always have government on board

Collective Food systems approach towards sustainable food production – over the years, we have coined a lot of concepts to describe the kind of Agriculture we should adopt; what stands out in all is that we have to form mutually benefitting partnerships; we have to work collectively; we have to aggregate our ideas/ actors/ services; we have to look at the entire agriculture ecosystem – and create sustainability at every stage; whether in seed systems; production systems; skills development; market development and access; technology and new practices’ adoption; resource mobilization etc. the level of disjoint-ment is so significant we can hardly attain universal sustainability.

The role of Farmers, producers and their organizations – the foundation of a food system is with the farmers; they are usually the weakest link in the system; however a lot is expected of them in terms of their function and role in food systems – they are however the least resourced; have the least capacity, most fragmented as a group…it would be difficult to achieve sustainable food production systems when the farmers are vulnerable and not directly supported. The many gains achieved in the recent years have been wiped down due to a series of shocks the last 4 or so years.

How can countries and stakeholders adapt and reformulate strategies and policies to accelerate progress towards SDG 2

From where we seat, our view is that we have the requisite policies in place to be able to progress towards SDG 2, our challenge is that we do not have the resources to scale what has worked; also depending on the country, the policy development process maybe incomplete; then in many African countries we tend to have inconsistent and conflicting policies making it un-attractive for long term sustainable investments. In our view we need to first look at what is working and build on it; we need to harmonize the existing policies including institutionalization and most importantly we need to provide abundant resources.

What are the significant blockages towards SDG 2.4 target and what type of innovations are needed to overcome these blockages in the future?

• Safety nets – it is about time that build safety nets for farmers to mitigate against the many shocks farming is facing; the impacts of the shocks is that it waters down progression; with climate change it will be imperative to innovate around mitigation and adaptation
• Partnerships – these have often been underestimated; but we need innovative vertically integrated partnerships that have equity and are mutually reinforcing; not institution can achieve this alone looking at the size of the challenge; partnerships enhance information flow, technology uptake an d reduce a lot of transaction costs.
• Significant targeted resources – the biggest bottleneck has always been resources; we need our governments to commit almost triple of what they are currently committing to Agriculture; we need more dynamic ways of raising resources especially from private sector but this has to be laden with tangible incentives; we also need to have the development funds target directly the vulnerable and needy actors and here we have more players especially the philanthropists and foundations who in many times do not have information about some of these opportunities.