Ending hunger

By : Abdelmonem Fawzi

However, this should not divert our attention from the main causes of hunger, namely climate change, runaway population growth and growing poverty.

Most workers in African states are jobless. This is why they have no penny to buy food and put it on the table for their families.

The good news, however, is that African ministers, non-state actors and African Union development partners have agreed to eradicate poverty and malnutrition in our continent.

These include – among others – the African Development Bank, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, FAO, the International Food Policy Research Institute, USAID and the World Bank.

These actors made such a pledge as part of the 17th CAADP Partnership Platform deliberations.

More than halfway through the 2025 landmark, the vision encapsulated in the Malabo Declaration still lives on and CAADP is more pertinent today than ever before in ensuring food security and improving the livelihoods of Africans.

“In order to improve food security in the continent, we need to track the implementation of the Malabo Declaration,” Josefa Sacko, the commissioner for agriculture, rural development, blue economy and sustainable environment at the African Union Commission, said.

She said this is especially true to the agricultural vision for Africa.

During the partnership platform deliberations, it was observed that most African countries were not on track to meet the 2025 target of ending hunger, as set out in the Malabo commitments in 2014.

Sacko noted that ending hunger as a target has also been hampered by the impacts of Covid-19. Therefore, she called for strengthening capacities and systems.

She said the continental target for bringing down malnutrition to 5% or less by 2025 is not on track.

“The continental target for bringing down stunting prevalence to 10% or less is not on track too,” she added.

Sacko pointed out that the number of hungry people in the continent has risen by 47.9 million since 2014.

She said the number of these people stood at 250.3 million, or nearly one-fifth of Africa’s population in 2020.

Food security in the continent has also been severely affected by the disruption that happened in the international supply chain.

This was compounded by other shocks, including locust outbreaks in 2020, the invasion of fall armyworms in 2018 and 2019, extreme weather patterns due to climate change, and deteriorating security conditions in some African countries.

Covid-19 came to add more insult to injury in this regard, including because of the restrictions the pandemic put in place and the consequences it has.

Therefore, it was agreed that being midway through the Malabo round, Africans need to expedite the CAADP implementation by giving a new impetus to its domestication by states and regional economic communities.

“For me, the issue of accountability has been a major takeaway,” Angela Thoko Didiza, South Africa’s minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development and the chair of the Bureau of the 3rd AU STC on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment, said.

The CAADP Partnership Platform is the main African Union’s continental agricultural platform for policy dialogue, lessons sharing and accountability that seeks to advance the transformation of agriculture on the continent and ensure food security, as well as resilient food systems.

CAADP was adopted by African Union member states in 2003 as a policy framework to accelerate agriculture-led growth, while elevating improved food security and nutrition as well as increasing incomes in Africa’s largely agriculture-based economies. It is framed by ambitious goals to be achieved by 2025.

In 2014, all African heads of state renewed their commitment to the continent’s CAADP targets and principles in the Malabo Declaration.

The theme of 17th CAADP Partnership Platform was chosen to take advantage of the renewed momentum that has been created by the UN Food Systems Summit, at a moment when the continent is halfway through the Malabo Declaration timeframe.

CEO of the African Union Development-NEPAD, Ibrahim Mayaki, said Africans should be reminded that hunger, beyond the physical discomfort, is a humiliating experience.

“It deprives individuals of their dignity and basic human right,” he said. “Hunger ultimately affects all aspects of our development agenda as a continent.”

Nevertheless, the decision to end hunger in our continent needs to be taken by society as a whole, not by a single organisation or a single government.

Abdelmonem Fawzi is a veteran Egyptian writer and African affairs specialist.