Explore Official Dialogue Feedback

The participants were knowledgeable of the main challenges in the region and stressed on the need to have urgent action and implementation.

• Raise awareness on the effects of malnutrition and its cost on health and importance of consuming healthy food, reduce the consumption of junk food especially for children and provide system-wide solutions to address the issues of malnutrition and obesity • Better understanding of the food chain so that people can come closer to the source of their food and appreciate its value and reduce its waste. This could entail subsidizing initiatives to reuse wasted food to make compost, energy and animal feed and raising awareness of young people in urban cities on importance of reducing waste. �... Read more�� Give equal right to women and men in accessing resources, stop child forced labor and promote youth lead economic empowerment programs to reduce high unemployment rate. • Review land and water tenure modalities to ensure equitable access to resources and allow land access to nomad Bedouins, make available different sets of food pricing to enable access to cheap food for the most deprived , and ensuring access to basic food as basic right for all • Build capacity to improve use of green technologies that are affordable, use water saving technology to help farmers and promote use of nonconventional water resources • Promote research, use of technology and renewable energy, use climate resilient crops that require less amount of water and save local seeds and improve agro-diversity • Shift to plant-based protein consumption and reduce meat consumption • Reduce import dependency by diversifying trade partners and increase trade on food products between Arab nations • Going back to local food traditions instead of globalized ones as the local foods are the ones most adapted to local climatic conditions • Subsidize environmentally friendly agriculture practices: permaculture and follow scientists’ recommendations on climate change issues and other hazards Read less

The game changing actions identified across each of the four issues that were discussed and voted upon as priority based on experiences. For Transitioning to Healthy Food, - Make laws that makes it illegal to waste food - Reduce the consumption of junk food especially for children - Raising awareness on the effect of malnutrition (diabetes, obesity, heath related cost, etc) For Advancing Equitable Livelihoods - Sop child forced labor - Implement youth economic empowerment programs to reduce high unemployment rate among youth in the region - Give equal right to women and men in accessing resour... Read moreces For Optimizing Sustainable Production - Capacity building for CSOs on using use solar power - Use crops that are climate resilient and require less amount of water For Responding to Risks - Reduce import dependency by diversifying trade partners - Build capacities of youth and civil society to adapt to climate change Read less

The dialogue aimed at addressing four priority issues were identified as most relevant to the Arab Region namely: Transitioning to Healthy Food, Advancing Equitable Livelihoods, Optimizing Sustainable Production, and Responding to Risks and Hazards. For each priority issue, key challenges and facts in the region were identified and game changing actions were proposed including actors and beneficiaries.

The participants were knowledgeable of the main challenges in the region and stressed on the need to have urgent action and implementation.

• Access to healthy and sufficient food at all time is a right and requires intervention from governments. Promoting and establishing decentralized local markets, in partnership with small farmers, enables the access to healthy food in times of crisis. • Importance of role of the national private sector as it has a direct impact on the local markets. Having the private sector more involved in enhancing food security to enhance balancing between expectation and reality. • Importance of Transfer of technology importance to empower small and to better empower entrepreneurs to come up with n... Read moreew initiatives, piloting them, recording their work modality and benefits so that farmers are encouraged to scale them up. • Collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders. Governments are the primary stakeholders to many of the actions related to enhancing productivity as any sustainable production process requires relevant policies and providing the needed infrastructure that enables stakeholder make use of needed technologies for sustainable production processes. • Implementation of National emergency plans however due to instability in the region these plans are not being implemented. Also, a need for enhancing national reserves as they should be distributed across the country and are not supposed to be stored only in one area to reduce risks. • Need to link between humanitarian response, sustainable production in times of conflict. Managing the root causes of vulnerabilities and investing in stopping conflicts and wars based on human rights are primordial. Humanitarian aid needs to be focused and promote locate food systems and that governments are required to make sure that the aid received considers national priorities that protect the most vulnerable people. Read less

The game changing actions identified across each of the four issues that were discussed and voted upon as priority based on experiences. (a) Transitioning to Healthy Food 1. Provide incentives for healthy consumption and buying healthy food 2. Use innovative methods for food production (research - preproduction) (Most voted on) 3. Enhance marketing strategies (Identification of food groups for vulnerable groups) 4. Promote and establishing decentralized local markets, in partnership with small farmers, to ensure access to healthy food in light of crises 5. Train young men and women to be invol... Read moreved in sustainable land and agriculture. 6. Organize workshops on the benefits of organic farming and limiting use of chemicals 7. Promote incubators to increase technical expertise and scientific information 8. Increase awareness on post-harvest losses 9. Raise awareness on nutrition and promote the education on nutrition 10. Harmonize regulations within the region to improve exchange of commodities (2nd most voted on) 11. Provide a special platform for marketing sustainable agriculture products (3rd most voted on) 12. Consider access to healthy food a basic right whereby states need to ensure safe and affordable access to healthy food 13. Enhance coordination with all stakeholders to focus efforts on improving situation (b) Advancing Equitable Livelihoods: 1. Enhance accessibility of farmers to technology mainly small farmers (most voted on) 2. Support and promote agro-processing in rural areas 3. Invest in solar energy and renewable energies especially in rural areas (2nd most voted on) 4. Increase awareness on the role of women in food systems and agriculture sector 5. Raise awareness on water consumption challenges by responsible ministries 6. Enforce land registration systems to help financial access (3rd most voted on) 7. Protect local food systems from dumping 8. Promote entrepreneurship and innovation for youth and women to improve job creation, increase income and improving livelihood in rural areas 9. Enhance land management systems that protect access to land 10. Promote use of efficient water management systems that are accessible to small farmers (c) Optimizing Sustainable Production 1. Increase budget (public and private) provided for research on agriculture production 2. Enhance reliance on agricultural and industrial incubators 3. Invest in agricultural extension programs and staff 4. Better assess and understand limitations of existing natural resources to better respond to these challenges 5. Encourage innovation in the field of green biotech crops 6. Study potential of transforming desert plants to edible foods 7. Protect agricultural lands and reviewing national policies for land use 8. Support agriculture and ecology and limiting the use of chemicals 9. Promote agricultural research and improve access of producers to it 10. Increase interest in agricultural research and extension 11. Use of on modern technologies in irrigation to conserve water resources 12. The use of modern technologies in agriculture, water harvesting, and supplementary irrigation are important factors in sustainable production 13. Use of drought resistant crops in pilots and scaling up its use in arid areas 14. Awareness and capacity building in the use of modern and appropriate technologies (d) Responding to Risks 1. Need for more agricultural insurance institutions 2. Improve knowledge sharing and exchange of experiences between governments and organizations 3. Adopt the triple nexus approach (Humanitarian/ Development/ Peace- HDP) in a participative manner during crisis contexts 4. Resolve the underlying causes of vulnerability to risks and drivers of crises 5. Provide social safety nets and risk prevention mechanisms 6. Adopt emergency policies, plans, and programs 7. Enhance risk-based decision making among populations 8. Enhancing capacities to cope with risks and Hazards as during these times challenges should be faced together and everyone should contribute 9. Engage women in agriculture and food production Read less

The dialogue aimed at addressing four priority issues were identified as most relevant to the Arab Region namely: Transitioning to Healthy Food, Advancing Equitable Livelihoods, Optimizing Sustainable Production, and Responding to Risks and Hazards. For each priority issue, key challenges and facts in the region were identified and game changing actions were proposed including actors and beneficiaries.

a) Mechanism for monitoring and evaluation of government policies. b) Human rights under-achieved c) Unsustainable support system to farmers

The alarming spate of insecurity across several States in Nigeria, which has led to killings and clashes between crop farmers and herders creates a siege psyche. Under this circumstance, shortage of food produce is imminent. Workable synergies be activated between responsible public and private sectors to galvanize already made efforts to eradicate insurgency and banditry, give confidence to farmers and other sectoral players to contribute towards attaining sustainable food systems in Nigeria.

Insurance for farmers has not been widely discussed while bureaucratic bottlenecks continue to become a persistence barrier to turning policies to actions for short and long-term social good. Farming is unattractive to young people, who, for lack of participation, also lost out from the enormous benefits in the enlarged Agricultural value chain. Categorically, all stakeholders (research institutes, CSOs, government, private sector) are called to collaboratively design and adopt peer-to-peer national campaigns to educate and mentor youth as active agriprenuers -introducing agrictech (such as hy... Read moredroponic farming, digital procurement, e- commerce, smart farming, weather & climate services, digital finance). Read less

The evolving nature of our environmental and social systems has rendered obsolete the traditional measures of preparedness for shocks and stress and even ways we built resilience to vulnerabilities. Farmers and indeed everyone become too vulnerable to undue environmental, health and economic shocks and inequalities. Rarely do farmers have reliable data on product, financial status and access to efficient commodity exchanges. Smallholder farmers lack the capacity to conduct proper monitoring and evaluation. The services of experts and/or Extension workers to train and retrain farmers on contemp... Read moreorary acceptable vulnerability and shocks preventive measures is in extinction. It was strongly recommended creating access to finance and insurance for smallholder farmers, SMEs and agricultural value chain clusters/cooperatives (e.g. Nigerian Stock Exchange growth board) as a means to spur rural transformation and investment in food systems. Additionally, training these actors to adopt regenerative and circular practices as economic, social and environmental preparedness to future shocks and vulnerabilities. Read less

Advancing Equitable livelihoods to proffer economic recovery and growth solutions for the vulnerable within the context of subsisting challenges is further hampered by lean access to agricultural inputs, distribution, transportation and value addition opportunities to uplift vulnerable people and communities in Nigeria. Non-compliance with (and lack of application of) digital and financial technologies solutions by farmers and other supply chain players deprives actors from the pull-and-push activities benefits. The Dialogue called for concerted efforts by the Government and other stakeholders... Read more to catalyze agro- zones, reactivate localized investments and upgrade smallholder farmers (especially women, youth, the disabled) to become investable through adequate training and support, advisory services and access to research opportunities. Read less

Deforestation, land degradation, bush burning are some of the factors endangering nature-positive food production in Nigeria. Inadequate data and early warning information systems on weather and climate conditions cuts crop yield and risks adequate food supply, increases cost of food items and causes hunger. Post-harvest losses alone is damning mainly due to lack of storage facilities -which reduces the opportunity to explore value addition to boost income (for the producers) and increase local and national food supply chains. In meeting the aim of Boosting Nature-Positive Food Production, res... Read morepective Government agencies have responsibilities of providing farmers with biofortified crop seeds and adequate training to boost production of farm outputs as well as incentivizing regenerative food production. The Meteorological Agency needs to start information dissemination in local languages on Radio to aid Farmers in planning and tracking climate conditions. Read less

The possibility of easily shifting to sustainable consumption patterns seems uncertain. Dilapidated infrastructures no longer support farmers and other actors within the Nigeria agricultural value chain. Unavailability of improved farming systems whether for subsistence (to metamorphose) or commercial farmers delimit application of innovations and investments in promoting healthy food production and packaging for consumption and waste management. Inadequate investment in proper food preservation contribute to high rate of food waste. For lack of proper supervision, unregulated private sector o... Read moreperators fail to produce food products that promote healthy and safe diets, thus putting consumers’ health at risk. The importance of attaining sustainable consumption patterns can hardly be overemphasized. To achieve this, the supply chain audit is needed to dissect vulnerabilities; build infrastructures; create cluster for local farmers to share information and learn recycling, proper preservation and waste management techniques while synergizing cooperation among stakeholders in the agriculture and food ecosystem. Read less

Despite efforts by regulatory Agencies, food Safety is not evenly guaranteed across Nigeria. Lack of safe and nutritious food and the burden of unhealthy diets hit the poor more. Children around insurgent- wrecked north-west and communal clashes-prone areas in Nigeria are undoubtedly malnourished. High consumption of calories result in overweight and obesity, especially in children and young adults. There are concerns on monitoring of producers, processors and food vendors -the lapses linked to weak coordination of governance support systems in driving implementation of policy and regulation f... Read morerameworks on nutrition, food safety and hunger eradication. To strategically ensure access to safe nutritious food for Nigerians, it behooves on respective MDAs to work together to eradicate systemic and institutional inadequacies and amplify resources and programs in compliance with the AU Food Safety index to increase access to healthy and nutritious food from production and processing to table. Government is encouraged to effectively implement a sustainable national home grown school feeding program, taking lesson from Osun State. Read less

(i) Enhancing capacity of farmers, agri-food enterprises and value chain stakeholders as key drivers of food systems. (ii) Unpacking the established multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral food governance policies and legislation at sub-national and national levels. (iii) Forge collective solutions to ensure that food systems transformation delivers on social good and expectations to ameliorate hunger and poverty. (iv) Emphasize the application of tech as building blocks for an open-ended opportunity to sectoral players. (v) Create a connection to ease information sharing amongst the various agri... Read morecultural value chain stakeholders. Read less