Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue

 5-6.August 2019. Kigali. Core partners — African Union Commission (AUC), African Development Bank (AfDB), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and World Bank (WB) —  convened this high-level meeting.

The event, hosted by the Government of Rwanda, pulled together heads of state, ministers of agriculture and finance, heads of international institutions and Regional Economic Commissions (RECs), Nobel laureates, and eminent scientists to catalyze actions and financing to help address Africa’s worsening food security crisis under climate change.

• The aim of the AFSLD wss to facilitate engagement between governments and key development partners to galvanize unified action for Africa's agriculture and food systems in response to climate change. 
• Around 250 people attended the two-day event, including the President of Rwanda Paul Kagame and European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica.
• The dialogue facilitated engagement between key stakeholders to galvanize unified action around adaptation of Africa’s agriculture and food systems to climate change. 
• At the Kigali meeting, the core partners signed a communiqué that will formalize a commitment to better coordinate and facilitate joint actions.

The Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue is fully in line with the Africa Union Agenda 2063 and is intended to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) and leverage existing platforms.

Extract of the programme:

Towards A New Collaboration: Scaling up Investment and Policy Response for Food Security in a Changing Climate

• H.E. Ambassador Josefa Sacko, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, African Union Commission
• Gilbert Houngbo, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development
• Maria Helena Semedo, Deputy Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization
• Hafez Ghanem, Vice President, Africa Region, World Bank
• Ute Klamert, Assistant Executive Director for Partnerships, World Food Program
• Martin Fregene, Director, Agriculture and Agro-Industry, African Development Bank Group

With the ‘2019 State of Food Security and Nutrition’ report by FAO indicating that 31 percent of the nearly 821 million people who are hungry worldwide come from sub-Saharan Africa, Kagame called for collective efforts among partners to end the threat.

“Increased agricultural productivity is essential for eradicating hunger and undernourishment. But food security is not where we stop. We want a continent that is truly prospering in every sense of the term. And agriculture is undoubtedly the foundation of Africa’s prosperity. That is the larger ambition we must challenge ourselves to achieve. We owe it to the generations that follow us”