Ministers at the largest ever FAO Regional Conference for Africa committed to ‘raising ambitions and accelerating actions’ towards achieving food security at the end of the three-day event
Approximately 900 delegates, including 95 ministers and other government officials from 48 countries, met in the contextof rising food insecurity and malnutrition exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and multiple overlapping crises – climate change, transboundary pests and diseases, conflict and economic downturn.
Delegates are committed to accelerating the transformation of African agriculture and agri-food systems, including through innovation and the introduction of digital technologies in the agriculture sector.
They also supported further contributions to the African Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) by describing it as an instrument ‘to show that Africa is capable of taking over and leading priority programmes’.
The ministers also called on FAO to continue to ensure “greater flexibility and efficiency in the use of the limited existing financial and human resources of the organisation” to support members and to provide further leadership in inter-agency cooperation on the transformation towards sustainable agri-food systems.
They further supported FAO’s work with multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral platforms to strengthen dialogue, investment and innovation for sustainable agri-food systems, particularly in the run-up to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.
