Tanzanian President, Dr Samia Hassan,has launched Africa’s Food System Forum (AFSF) 2023 and calls for inclusion of youth and women as critical drivers of Africa’s food systems agenda.
Hassan officially launched the forum described as ‘Africa’s premier platform’ for advancing the
agriculture and food systems agenda in Africa.
The theme of this year’s Forum is “Recover, Regenerate, Act: Africa’s Solutions to
Food Systems Transformation”
It is anchored around building back better Food Systems and Food Sovereignty.
The Forum identifies three steps needed to achieve this transformation.
The first steps is recovery, which is a call for decisive strategies and actions to help Africa recover and rebuild its food systems following multiple crises and shocks.
The second step anchors on regenerate – which calls for need to regenerate the natural resources, such as soil and water.
These are are essential for sustainable food production.
Act is the third step, which refers to the need to take urgent action to address food systems challenges, such as climate change, food waste and food insecurity before the 2030 SDG deadline.
The AFSF will take place from Sept. 5 to Sept. 8 in Dar es Salaam Tanzania.
Speaking at the launch,the President Hassan said that hosting the AFSF 2023 was of importance to Tanzania.
She said more than 25 per cent of the country’s GDP relies on the agricultural sector.
“For many years, Tanzania’s agriculture was based on subsistence farming.
“Today, the Government of Tanzania has made it a goal to prioritise this sector to
create livelihoods for our people.
“We are doing this through various programmes borne out of our hosting and learnings from the 2012 AGRF Summit.
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“We are also focusing priority on ensuring youth in investment and agricultural reform in our
country.
“It is my hope that the hosting of this forum in our country is one step forward and a good start to achieve the results we expect in our agricultural sector,” Hassan said.
She also noted that by hosting the Forum, Tanzania is announcing to the world that “our
country aims to become a food granary for Africa and the world in general”.
Hassan call on the international community, partners of Africa’s Food Systems Forum,
the private sector and development partners to participate fully in the
forum to strengthen food systems in Africa.
In his remarks, the Chair of the Forum, Hailemariam Dessalegn, highlighted the importance of the continent moving beyond planning to curb food insecurity, to executing and actualising commitments.
He called for innovation, partnership, leadership and home-grown solutions to respond to
emergent agricultural and food systems challenges.
“Our challenges around food system will only get worse unless we work together to drive meaningful change.
“The difference between the Africa we seek to see and the Africa we shall become by 2060 is all dependent on the decisions we, as leaders, make.
“It will also depend on the supporting infrastructure, investments and policies in transforming food systems to produce sufficient, nutritious food in the changing social, political and climatic conditions.
“As we rally towards the next Africa’s Food Systems Forum, it is important that we
deepen our efforts to scale up our homegrown solutions and partnerships,” he said.
The Africa Food Systems Forum will take place from Sept. 5 to Sept. 8 in Dar
es Salaam Tanzania.
Africa’s Food Systems Forum, is the world’s premier forum for African agriculture, bringing together stakeholders in the agricultural landscape to take practical actions and share lessons that will move African agriculture forward.
The forum is particularly focused on driving progress of the Malabo Declaration by 2025 as the
priority set of commitments African Heads of State and Government have made to strengthen agricultural development at the center of the continent’s overall development and progress.
The Forum partners group is made up of 26 leading actors in African agriculture all focused on putting farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economies.
They include African Development Bank (AfDB), African Fertiliser and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) among others.
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