{"id":63198,"date":"2013-11-21T01:54:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T01:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierraexpressmedia.com\/?p=63198"},"modified":"2013-11-21T01:54:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T01:54:47","slug":"investment-in-agriculture-necessary-to-feed-the-two-billion-who-will-go-hungry-by-2050","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/?p=63198","title":{"rendered":"Investment in agriculture necessary to feed the two billion who will go hungry by 2050"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-day Convening Focused on Policy Reform for Smallholder Farmers and Way Forward<\/i>
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DAKAR, S\u00e9n\u00e9gal, November 20, 2013\/ — <\/b>\u00a0\u201cNearly 240 million Africans are malnourished and although only one-third of those who face hunger are based in Africa, the percentage of people who suffer from hunger here is higher than in any other region of the world,\u201d stated Mr. Charles Abugre Akelyira, Africa Regional Director of the UN Millennium campaign, based in Nairobi.\u00a0 \u201cWe must invest in agriculture not just to feed the current generation but to prepare for the two billion more mouths we will need to feed by 2050. In particular, we have to invest in small-scale agriculture, as part of our mixed strategy.\u00a0 Two-thirds of our farm outputs come from small farmers,\u201d he said.
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Mr. Akelyira was the keynote speaker at the recent two-day convening entitled \u201cA Decade of CAADP: Reflections on Key Outcomes of Agricultural Policy Reforms in Africa.\u201d\u00a0 The convening, held at the Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya on November 12-13 was sponsored by TrustAfrica (http:\/\/www.trustafrica.org<\/a>), in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.\u00a0 Its purpose was to raise awareness about the role of agriculture in development and to give voice to those most affected by agricultural development policies, particularly smallholder farmers.<\/p>\n

\"Charles<\/a>

Charles Abugre Akelyira, Africa Regional Director of the UN Millennium campaign<\/p><\/div>\n

Participants from six African countries\u2014Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria\u2014came together to reflect on the work they have done under TrustAfrica\u2019s Agricultural Reform project.\u00a0 The advocacy project, begun in 2010, seeks to raise awareness among smallholder farmers about the promises made under the Maputo Declaration Target, which, in part, states that African governments will dedicate 10% of their budgets to pro-poor agricultural policies. The aim is to have farmers hold their governments accountable for the budgets they have been promised. So far TrustAfrica has assisted 21 organizations over the 3 years the program has been in operation.\u00a0 It has donated approximately $955,629 in grants on behalf of the Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n

During the conference, panelists reflected on the performance of the CAADP (the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program) since its inception 10 years ago.\u00a0 There was an agreement that more education needs to be done to create greater awareness around the issues facing smallholder farmers on the part of CAADP.\u00a0 \u201cWe have their blessing, but not their drive,\u201d one participant stated.\u00a0 \u201cThere should be sector-wide reviews involving all stakeholders,\u201d stated another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been an important opportunity for stakeholders working with the smallholder farming sector to gather together their impressions, lessons learned and ideas around the issues related to the CADDP and improving the lives of smallholder farmers,\u201d said TrustAfrica Acting Program Director, Dr. Tendai Murisa.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, when it comes to the issues that concern these stakeholders, there is still work to be done.\u00a0 We are excited about the fact that the AU has decided to declare 2014 the year of Agriculture and Food Security.\u00a0 However, we are concerned that African governments have not increased their allocations to agriculture.\u00a0 There is an urgent need to realign the policies and resources of governments so that they better reflect the already existing consensus that in Africa, agriculture has the potential to be the engine that can drive inclusive growth and development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants took time during the conference to share lessons learned and strategies for their continued advocacy work. Topics included the role of research and extension work, resource mobilization strategies, and trends and innovations surrounding policy work.\u00a0 In the evening, participants also took part in a Marketplace Exposition that allowed civil society organizations to share some of the results of their efforts.<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of TrustAfrica.<\/i>
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Two-day Convening Focused on Policy Reform for Smallholder Farmers and Way Forward DAKAR, S\u00e9n\u00e9gal, November 20, 2013\/ — \u00a0\u201cNearly 240 million Africans are malnourished and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":63199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[671,751],"tags":[17474,1897,2077],"class_list":["post-63198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-global-news","tag-agricultutre","tag-environment","tag-food-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}