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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the African Union (FAO), has pledged to continue to work with the African Union in promoting food and nutrition security on the African continent.
Speaking to Spiked Online Media on the sidelines of the FAO Regional Office for Africa (RAF) Capacity Development Workshop running in Harare, Zimbabwe from 17 to 28 February 2024 yesterday, Dr. Patrice Talla, the FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa said the adoption of the Kampala Declaration by the African countries was a testament of the commitment to achieving food security and nutrition on the continent, hence FAO’s willingness to collaborate with Africa to achieve that noble objective.
“Together with the African Union, FAO is talking about food system transformation. Because to be able to achieve food security, we need to have a multi-sector approach. That’s why now we are talking most about a food system. Under the Kampala Declaration, the African Union will be working with several partners, including FAO, to support the African countries in achieving food security and nutrition.
“This is going to be the mandate of the new African Union commissioner for agriculture who was elected this past week. So the African Union is getting a new leadership, and FAO has always been an important partner for the African Union, specifically in the implementation of all the programs related to food security and nutrition. So we will continue doing our part as FAO through our office in Addis Ababa, and also through our regional office in Accra,” Dr. Talla said.
He said that the FAO office in Zimbabwe, covering Southern Africa, works very closely with the SADC secretariat in the implementation of all the resolutions, and declarations adopted by the African Union.
“SADC is a subsidiary organization of the African Union so we support the SADC secretariat to implement all those agreements including the new Kampala Declaration and the African Continental Free Trade Area which was adopted a few years ago to improve trade among the African countries.
“We are working very closely with the SADC secretariat so that the countries in Southern Africa improve not only in terms of production in agriculture but also improving the trade of those products among themselves,” Dr Talla added.
