Date: Friday, 17 September 2021

Level: Regional

Location: The University of Bamenda

The Context

The Food System Summit Dialogue is an independent Dialogue aimed at gathering experiences and ideas of all who are engaged in agriculture, food security, climate change issues, biodiversity and conservation, waste management, water resources and wet land conservation etc. It is a one-day dialogue/conference aimed at creating a platform for youths, women and girls, youth associations engaged in agriculture and allied sectors. It is meant to create awareness, make their voices heard, and access collaboration and networking opportunities with others sharing the same vision. It is also geared at creating awareness on building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress as an enabler in transforming the broken food system by 2030. This conference is organized by Global Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network (GCSAYN) and partners across the globe.

Rationale

Nature and food systems have a symbiotic relationship. How we treat nature, inadvertently determines the pathway in transforming the broken food systems globally. The debate is focused on how global food security can be harnesses/enhanced while simultaneously preserving the integrity and the intrinsic value of the ecosystem. Building resilience to climate and environmental shocks would be the only sustainable way out in transforming the broken food chains by 2030. We need to factor in indigenous and innovative solutions with urgency to transform the broken food systems globally.

Bamenda, the economic and administrative capital and a major food producing hub of the North West region has borne the brunt of the Anglophone crisis since 2016 with a huge youth’s rural exodus whose main stay has been agriculture. This has resulted to a reduction in agricultural activities as a result of a drop in labour force and a consequent pressure on the natural resource base (land and water) limiting their production. These youths have become unemployed or under employed in their agricultural activities and allied sectors. They inadvertently fall back to unsustainable ways of production or dangerous survival strategies exacerbating the broken food systems. This forum in Bamenda strategically located and centralized to bring all youths in the region as they constitute the major labour force in the agricultural sector to recreate that zeal, synergize and network with other youths locally and globally in transforming the broken food chains using resilience. It would be of no gain saying that this forum would be a perfect opportunity of integrating agriculture and peace in the region.

With the foregoing, this conference is geared at engaging all stakeholders (youths, women, administrative, traditional and religious authorities, associations engaged in agriculture and its satellite allies) to proffer resilience that would be factored in redefining and transforming the broken food systems in Cameroon and globally. These solutions would be one of the major steps in achieving agenda 2030.

Objective

The objective of the dialogue is to

• Create a platform for all stakeholders to speak out on global food systems issues
• Proffer resilience in transforming the broken food systems
• Highlight and show case youths success stories in transforming the broken food system
• Mainstreaming sustainable agricultural activities and allied sectors
• Create local and regional youth community for knowledge sharing and implementation of sustainable agriculture (partnership development)
• Creation of an SDG corner

Expected outcomes

• Resilience geared at transforming the broken food system
• Stakeholders experiences in mainstreaming sustainable agriculture in their activities
• Youths success stories in mainstreaming sustainable agriculture and transforming the broken food chain
• Incorporating more youths in the agricultural value chain and allied sectors aimed at achieving SDG 1 and 2 by 2025
• Establishing a resilience platform /partnerships/Network in achieving SDG1 and 2 by 2025

Target

The dialogue targets about 50 participants engaged in agriculture and allied sectors, a panel of 5 speakers and a break out session for participants and panelist for exchange of experiences and views.

Expected participants

• Students
• Youths
• Farmers
• People with disabilities
• Agripreneurs
• Government and religious officials
• Media persons
• Environmental NGOs

Expected impacts

• Youths mainstreaming resilience solutions in all activities in transforming the broken food systems
• Institutional and stakeholder engagement in mainstreaming sustainable agriculture
• Accelerating local and regional strategies in resilience to climate and environmental shocks in transforming the broken food systems by 2030
• Creation of youth communities of practice to implement the outcomes of the dialogue
• Accelerating local and regional strategies in sustainable agriculture in transforming the broken food systems by 2030
• Local and global partnership development in transforming the broken food systems