Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

Food production based on ecological consideration and food production based on demand-fulfillment consideration. Relationship between capital owner and smallholder farmers in the food production system and how it affects resilience.

(i) Local knowledge, such as the food barn (lumbung pangan), should be optimized to build resilience. (ii) Distribution system needs to be optimized so that it would maintain optimum chain during disruption, and safeguard both food security and income. (iii) Ease farmer’s access to food production input to build up farmer’s resilience to crisis. (iv) Harmonize the relationship between production and nature, to increase sustainability and resilience of the food system.

Empowerment of local communities are needed to build resilience from the ground up and multi-stakeholder cooperation needed to ensure the resilience of a food system.

The breakout room discussions covered: 1. Empowerment of local knowledge to create community-based resilience, started at the village level 2. Different paradigm of development and food production. 3. The importance of an unified disaster mitigation strategy from both the government and the local community. 4. Education on food consumption patterns to adapt to a more diversified and nutritionally sensitive diet. 5. Guaranteeing supply and food distribution during emergency through community-based food barn (lumbung pangan). 6. Empowerment of small-scale farmers by providing access to quality i... Read morenputs. Read less

Challenges and opportunities to transforming African food systems and ensuring that they are sustainable and resilient: a) Lack of timely and high-quality data to inform decision-making b) High degree of post-harvest losses, food waste, and high level of food imports c) Poor adoption and access to modern technologies and infrastructure which are key for raising agricultural productivity, market information, and proving access to markets etc. d) Limited technologies that well adapted to African environments and specificities e) Limited capacities to bridge science and policymaking as well capac... Read moreities for analysis and implementation f) Limited investments in agriculture and the lack of innovative financing mechanisms g) Growing effects of climate change and environmental and land degradation h) Africa’s growing youth unemployment and need better match skills and jobs available Read less

High level African Champions and their role in advocating for coherent support on the key issues emanating from the discussions: a) Local role models in society and local celebrities with huge followings who are willing to serve as Champions and use their platforms to raise awareness or rally behind the food systems transformation agenda. These can include footballers, musicians, actors, youth leaders (esp. given that Africa is a young continent), and others that amplify and advocate key food systems transformation messages. The messages will need to be presented to them in formats that easily... Read more accessible and understood by the champions and their followers. b) Well known, well-respected, of influential academics can help to raise awareness through their networks can help to amplify messages using their influence and gravitas. c) Winners of Africa's Food Prize can help to amplify and ensure action on the food systems transformation agenda. d) African Presidents or former Presidents or other political figures who are committed to the food systems transformation agenda can use their leadership and influential platforms to drive the foods systems agenda e) There is need to empower and strengthen the capacities local people affected by challenges facing food systems to advocate for themselves and communicate their stories to raise awareness on the challenges they face can be an effective way to raise awareness and drive change. Read less

Game-changing solutions from across the continent that are actionable, sustainable, and can have impact at scale in terms of building the resilience of African food systems to vulnerabilities, shocks, and stress: a) Harnessing and providing access to innovative technologies and digital solutions such as improved seed, mechanization, and ICT, that can allow farmers, policymakers, and practitioners to convert precise data into actionable knowledge and lead to better farming and investment decisions and improve agricultural productivity, competitiveness, better address the effects of climate chan... Read morege, and transform food systems. In particular, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning, digital technologies, and big data including remotely sensed data are providing innovative ways to not only fill knowledge gaps but to also boost agricultural productivity and address the numerous threats facing food systems. In addition, there is need to ensure that technologies from outside Africa are contextualized. b) Expanding mutual accountability platforms like joint sector reviews in more countries can help lead to better outcomes. There is empirical evidence to show that inclusive, regular, and comprehensive mutual accountability platforms to review agriculture sector progress and guide sector priorities while holding actors accountable are associated with greater public agricultural expenditures, which in turn increase agricultural productivity (Ulimwengu et al, 2020). c) Developing and applying integrated pest and land management systems d) Training of smallholder farmers to increase their market competitiveness, enabling them to meet sanitary and phytosanitary standards e) Establishing innovative and blended financing mechanisms and leveraging private sector funding to support high impact projects and making finance more accessible to farmers and other stakeholders f) In addition, African governments need to raise the level of investment in the agricultural sector to meet the 10 percent Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) budget share target. g) Conducting reviews of successful pilot projects and technologies to identify those that can be scaled up h) Need to strengthen capacities for policy implementation and monitoring and evaluation as well as to invest in technical and vocational training of Africa’s youth population Read less

Best practices, lessons learned, technological innovations, collaborations, and policies in transforming food systems: a) Harnessing and providing access to innovative technologies and digital solutions such as improved seed, mechanization, and ICT, that can allow farmers, policymakers, and practitioners to convert precise data into actionable knowledge and lead to better farming and investment decisions and improve agricultural productivity, competitiveness, better address the effects of climate change, and transform food systems. In particular, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as... Read more machine learning, digital technologies, and big data including remotely sensed data are providing innovative ways to not only fill knowledge gaps but to also boost agricultural productivity and address the numerous threats facing food systems. b) Establishing knowledge platforms where policy, institutional, and technological innovations, best practices and lessons in successfully transforming food systems can be made available to different stakeholders so as to learn from the past and avoid past mistakes. For example, it is important to learn from what has worked well in other countries, like mechanization programs in Ghana and the need for governments to create enabling an environment for mechanization and private sector players. The Malabo Montpellier Panel Reports have great examples of African countries with successful policy and institutional innovations that can be scaled up in other countries. Such platforms can include e-learning platforms for farmers to share and exchange on innovations, data, and technologies. c) Establishing innovative financing mechanisms to provide farmers and other stakeholders with access to capital, including climate finance. d) Setting up programs or mechanisms to support private sector actors along the value chain and creating an enabling environment for private sector participation in food systems transformation. Read less

Participants highlighted the importance of first addressing the bottlenecks faced by African food systems in order to improve or effectively transform them. They noted several best practices and potential game changing solutions for transforming Africa’s food systems so that they are more resilient and sustainable. These included the need to: a) improve access to innovative technologies and digital solutions such as improved seed, mechanization, irrigation, and ICT to boost agricultural productivity, increase competitiveness, address the effects of climate change, and more generally help tra... Read morensform food systems; b) harness artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning, digital technologies, and big data including remotely sensed data to not only fill knowledge and data gaps but to also boost agricultural productivity and address the numerous threats facing food systems; c) ensure that technologies used in African are well-adapted to the African context and specificities; d) establish innovative and blended financing mechanisms for high impact projects to make financing more accessible to farmers and other value chain actors; e) invest in better data, policy implementation capacities, and technical and vocational training of Africa’s growing youth population; f) expand mutual accountability processes that are increasingly shown to lead to better outcomes. There is empirical evidence to show that inclusive, regular, and comprehensive mutual accountability platforms to review agriculture sector progress and guide sector priorities while holding actors accountable are associated with greater public agricultural expenditures, which in turn increase agricultural productivity (e.g. Ulimwengu et al, 2020). g)Develop and apply integrated pest and land management systems h) Train smallholder farmers to increase their market competitiveness, enable them to meet sanitary and phytosanitary standards i) In addition, African governments need to raise the level of investment in the agricultural sector to meet the 10 percent Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) budget share target. j)Establish knowledge platforms where policy, institutional, and technological innovations, best practices and lessons in successfully transforming food systems can be made available to different stakeholders so as to learn from the past and avoid past mistakes. For example, it is important to learn from what has worked well in other countries, like mechanization programs in Ghana and the need for governments to create enabling an environment for mechanization and private sector players. The Malabo Montpellier Panel Reports have great examples of African countries with successful policy and institutional innovations that can be scaled up in other countries. Such platforms can include e-learning platforms for farmers to share and exchange on innovations, data, and technologies. k) identify a broad group of African champions that can use their leadership or large networks to amplify and advocate for food systems transformation in Africa. Champions can include youth leaders, local celebrities (e.g. musicians, footballers), leading academics, political leaders including former presidents, and winners of the Africa Food Prize committed to the UNFSS agenda. Champions can also include local people affected by the challenges facing food systems, who are empowered and supported to advocate for themselves and communicate their stories as often they can be the best advocates. Finally, messages used by Champions will need to be presented in formats that easily accessible and understood by the general public to have impact. Read less

The dialogue was convened with the overall goal to enhance regional advocacy in support of the Food Systems Summit engagement process specifically focusing on Action Track 5: Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks, and stress. More specifically the dialogue sought to convene a broad group of African stakeholders including to: 1. Deliberate on challenges and opportunities to transforming African food systems and ensuring that they are sustainable and resilient; 2. Showcase best practices, lessons learned, technological innovations, collaborations, and policies in transforming food systems;... Read more 3. Identify game-changing solutions1 (e.g. emerging best practices, research evidence, conceptual frameworks,) from across the continent that are actionable, sustainable, and can have impact at scale in terms of building the resilience of African food systems to vulnerabilities, shocks, and stress; and 4. Discuss the role of high-level African champions that can advance the African perspective and “solutions” coming out of the regional food system dialogues. The expected outcomes of the dialogue was to: 1) Increased understanding of critical issues around challenges and opportunities to transforming African food systems; 2) Consensus on potential game changing solutions for ensuring resilient and sustainable food systems in Africa; 3) Identification of high level African Champions and agreement on their role in advocating for coherent support on the key issues emanating from the discussions; and 4) A summary statement consolidating African voices on best practices, game changing solutions, and recommendations from the dialogues. Read less