Egypt’s Agriculture Minister el Sayyed el Qusseir has pressed for inter-African cooperation and integration to achieve sustainable agricultural development and food security.
Coordination is needed among African countries to be able to alleviate poverty and hunger in line with the sustainable development goals and the African development agenda, Qusseir said in a speech read out Sunday by his advisor Dr Saeid Nassar during a debate organized by the World Bank on the fringe of the international climate summit, COP27, currently taking place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el Sheikh.
Africa is rich in natural resources, with some 930 million hectares of arable land, and a huge population of about 2.4 million people; 60 percent of whom are youth, the minister stated.
However, only half of that arable land is being used, he regretted, pointing also to an annual food gap worth about 50 billion dollars.
He added that about 224 million people in Africa suffer from malnutrition.
The volume of inter-African trade does not exceed 15 percent of the overall continent trade, the minister told the session.
He stressed the importance of specialized production based on comparative and competitive advantages in order to achieve sustainable usage of the available agricultural resources.
The minister also called for effort to encourage inter-African trade to reach 40 percent within the framework of the African free trade zone.
Egypt, he said, had submitted an initiative about transforming to sustainable food and agriculture, and another about green economy. Both initiatives were welcomed by development partners and the private sector, the minister noted.
He thanked the World Bank for its non-stop support for the agriculture sector in Egypt, requesting further backing and eased funding of infrastructure projects in Africa to help it adapt with the impact of climate change.
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