Month: September 2022

Tiny but mighty beans made a splash at AGRF’s 2022 Summit in Rwanda 5-9 September. The SDG2 Advocacy Hub worked closely with partners – including PABRA, AGRA, CGIAR, the Rockefeller Foundation, and WFP – to plan a series of activities to promote the importance of beans, pique interest and unify stakeholders around the rallying call of doubling global bean consumption by 2028. This included announcements of the campaign, the promotion of the value of beans, local visits to school meals projects and farms, and an exhibition of local varieties of beans on display alongside bean artwork and the campaign promotional materials.

Joining President Kagame and other past and present African Heads of State at the AGRF Gala Dinner, representatives of the Chefs’ Manifesto – Chef Alejandra Schrader, Chef Christian Abegan, Chef Dennis Prescott, and Rwanda-based Chef Claude Bigamimpunzi – together with Paul Newnham, announced the upcoming Beans is How campaign. The Chefs served four diverse beans inspired dishes, promoting the beans’ nutritious and delicious value.

Beans is How is an ambitious campaign to double the global consumption of beans (as well as peas, pulses and legumes) by 2028. The campaign will look to engage key audiences across food systems and beyond to champion beans in their work: the farmers who grow them, scientists who study them, companies who sell them, chefs who serve them, and people who consume them. Everyone, everywhere has a role to play in elevating beans to their rightful place.

wanda is the highest consumer of beans per capita in the world, and thus the perfect place to announce the Beans is How campaign. With beans eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the world has a lot to learn from Rwanda’s example. Showcasing nine different varieties of beans purchased from Kigali’s Kimironko market, a beans pop up stand stopped AGRF participants in their tracks and served as a dedicated space to host conversations about:

• The importance of beans as a nutritious food that is accessible and affordable
• Beans as a climate-friendly and sustainable solution for people and planet
• Celebrating African ingredients and products from across the continent while promoting diverse crops and diets, especially for nutritious school meals

The stand also proudly featured a beans artwork by local artist Bernard Birasa that symbolizes beans as a powerful unifier and connector across the globe, alongside Beans is How branded banners.

Online, a holding message was released for the Beans is How website and social channels.

An article was placed in the New Times Rwanda by CGIAR on the PABRA 25 Years.

The First Lady of Rwanda, Mrs. Kagame, focused on the AU’s year of nutrition and school meals, made a commitment to continue to champion beans in Rwanda and lead the way for a continent-wide increase in production and consumption in a session she hosted for First Ladies.

The chefs and SDG2 Advocacy Hub team also joined the Pan African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) in celebrating their 25-year anniversary. The chefs took part in panel discussions promoting beans consumption, media opportunities, and consumer behaviours, to school meals!

A delegation, including the chefs, also made multiple field trips around Rwanda to promote the values of Good Food For All and the Chefs’ Manifesto. This included:

• A visit to Farm Fresh Rwanda, a local company producing high iron beans
• A very special trip to visit Kayonza, for the School Meals Initiative where chefs met with a farmers cooperative and got to interact with farmers supplying fresh fruit and vegetables to the local school meal programs alongside the World Food Programme. They interacted with the school administrator and representative of the parents committee about how to increase nutrients whilst still making the food delicious.
• A visit with Africa Improved Foods to look at the process of fortifying staple foods, which aims to help people maximise their potential through improved nutrition with affordable, high quality, locally sourced foods.

The Youth Town Hall event, held today at the AGRF 2022 Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, saw policy makers, NGO leaders, business leaders and young entrepreneurs come together, providing a platform for young people to articulate their issues, challenges and aspirations within the agri-food space and to pose their questions to those leading the charge.

With an opening section celebrating the winners of this year’s GoGettaz competition, the session rapidly took on the dynamic and vibrant nature of Africa’s young entrepreneurship scene, reflecting the innovative and exciting potential of these individuals and their work. Nozipho Mbanjwa told attendees, “This is all about celebrating young agripreneurs who are really pioneering African solutions.”

As the applause wound down, Edson Mpyisi, Chief Financial Economist and Coordinator of ENABLE Youth at African Development Bank Group, took to the stage and had two messages for the young people in the room. Firstly, that everyone is truly rooting for them. He also urged them not to try to do everything alone. “Reach out for support” was his parting message.

Next was Amade Miquidade, the Ambassador of Mozambique in Rwanda, who for the most part, addressed the audience in his native Portuguese – he told the young attendees that this really is the time to build the future. A time in which we have multiple tools at our disposal, including developing technologies and various means of obtaining information. He highlighted that we can constantly learn from different people and different countries. In his words: “The youth mustn’t sit down and wait for others to draw and make policy – you must build the capacity for implementing policies that will help make the future you want.” He went on to make the point that to embark on further education and study doesn’t mean it’s imperative to follow a theoretical course – making the point that learning the technical aspects of producing crops has as much use and merit as studying to be a doctor or white collar worker.

What followed was an ambitious and inquisitive conversation between the young founders and co-founders of some of Africa’s most exciting new agribusinesses. The issues raised varied; from the difficulty in getting access to Africa’s governments, and therefore, appropriate agribusiness funding and technology; to unfair competition in markets where global imports account for a huge proportion of the country’s food.

Ronald Diang’a, CEO of Kenarava – a business advisory company – realised after undertaking training in Israel, that there is a big gap in support and advisory services that are youth-led and youth- centric.He was keen to argue that governments need to take a contemporary, technology-led approach in order to push young agripreneurship forward. He insisted that within government interventions, investments and strategies,modern technologies be wholly embedded – so that young people can do business their way, with the tools they know, and thrive.

Other panelists agreed, strongly acknowledging that a technology-centric approach to agriculture will be paramount to success in the sector. Other ideas included stipulating that government policies must hold a commercial advantage for young entrepreneurs in agriculture. For example, decreasing tax burdens, or ensuring that banks feel the need to provide competitive advantages in terms of funding and investment for youth agripreneur projects.

The conversation turned towards reach, education and marketing around nutrition and of the local, healthy food that is available to our populations.  As one panellist stated, producing healthy and nutritious food is one thing – but the challenge is then how to sell it, and how to reach people to educate them on its benefits? There is a need to shift mainstream consumer behaviour, and to do so at scale. Dr Florence Sibomana, Senior Program Officer on NCDs at PATH Rwanda &Youth Leader for Nutrition-SUN Movement, added, “it’s about advocating distinct branding strategies with help from governments, to help improve knowledge amongst the people on health and nutrition choices.”

Next was the question on how policymakers equip players with a high-potential market, ensuring local producers and agripreneurs can enter markets easily – instead of competing with multinational giants stocking shelves all over the world. Around 90% of food on supermarket shelves in Africa is currently imported. The answer? That it will require more than one approach: firstly, food security at a local level. Secondly, resolving supply chain issues – there is a distinct lack of skills in this area, and in marketing too. Dr Sibomania remarked on the need to upskill farmers on communication with supermarkets and hotels, to ensure their products are stocked and sold to customers. The same goes for reducing post-harvest loss. Governments, individuals and startups must prioritise the harnessing and dissemination of best practices in these areas – in a way that builds on current expertise, rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

The big question that resounded and was returned to, was, ultimately, how young people create and sustain a productive dialogue with their governments. Kombo Ekra Noël N’guessan, Founder of LONO, challenged the Ambassador on what Mozambique is doing to help with the common frustration of having to communicate with multiple government ministries as an agricultural startup. In other words, how do we ensure the linkage between those responsible for land, energy and water, in order to facilitate the work of leading agripreneurs?

Miquidade’s final commentary focused on the Mozambican government’s efforts to greenlight funding from financial institutions, as well as the provision of and access to high-value equipment for early-stage startups.

As Dr Agnes Kalibata made her closing remarks, she told attendees, assuredly, that “Africa has no future if its future is not about investing in young people.”

Her message to everyone present was that Africa must insist on this mission to feed itself – because if not, by 2030 we will be a poor continent. And her message to the young population? “Remember – nothing about us, without us. Don’t allow anybody to determine or mess with your future. You have a voice.”

As the sun sets on a hugely successful and incredibly important AGRF 2022, the closing plenary reflected on the week’s events, activities and outcomes – to scrutinise and discuss the lessons learned and the commitments made. The final plenary sought to underline how collaborative partnerships globally and nationally play an important role in reaching the goals of food security and advance the transformation of food systems.

The focus of this year’s summit has been around addressing the challenges facing the continent, from climate change to food security, the need to work collaboratively and recognising that forging the right partnerships will be fundamental to tackling the task at hand. We have reached the halfway point for the Sustainable Development Goals and are entering the final year of the first decade of Agenda 2063. The need for partnerships between countries, between institutions and stakeholder groups will all need to be strengthened to meet the ambitious goals that have been set.

The moderator, Ms. Fiona Mbabazi, opened by setting out the format and introducing Ms. Jennifer Baarn, Managing Director, AGRF for the official welcome, who began by noting that, ‘Everything that is happening is only exposing vulnerabilities that were already there, we need to ensure that in every corner of this continent, the voice of food systems transformation is clear.’ Reflecting on what happens after the summit ends she urged the importance of ‘carrying the baton and ensuring that every event taking place across the world, the voice of the African continent is clear.’

Dr. Ousmane Badiane, Founder and Executive Chairperson, Akademiya 2063 offered some thoughts and framed the conversation by highlighting the progress that has been made in the last twenty years but warned it was stalling, with reduced spending, and the per capita income diminished but he also spoke about opportunity by embracing change and seizing upon the technological innovations that are available.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Claudia Sadoff, Executive Managing Director (EMD), CGIAR began by remarking on what a fantastic opportunity it had been to reconnect with one another. Praising the ‘collegiality and sense of cautious optimism.’ Going on to iterate the need for practical action and investment in research to avoid further backslides, ‘we simply cannot succeed in taking technologies to scale unless we’re working in concert with Africa’s technical and research systems.’

The need for forging partnerships has been a leitmotif throughout the conference and today looked to underscore its importance. The discussion that followed, Reinforcing Global Cooperation for Food Systems emphasised the benefits and necessity for regional and national partnering.

Mr. Jorge Werthein, Senior Adviser to the Director General, IICA noted the common issues that they face in Central America and how advantageous it could be to cooperate and exchange ideas and information across the regions.

Mr. Yerlan Alimzhanuly Baidaulet, Director General, Islamic Organization for Food

Security expressed the need for continued communication, ‘out of Covid we’ve found the facility to communicate with one another which has been extremely important given the logistical issues faced by working across nations. Partnerships in action: create the partnerships, do the action. The problem with big conferences is we talk, we have to act immediately not just talk.’

H.E. Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, Founder and CEO, Food Systems for the Future opined that to ensure that agriculture is the driving force for economic growth, ‘we can’t achieve the goals if we can’t attract the capital and learn how to create a narrative that is appealing to private investment, by focusing not on the risk but upselling the advantages.’  

Ms. Diane Karusisi, CEO, Bank of Kigali appealed for renewed urgency to work with all the stakeholders to ensure there was food on the table and be resilient to shock.

After the discussion Ms. Jennifer Baarn underlined the takeaways of the event, saying, ‘The AGRF 2022 marks a turning point for Africa’s agricultural and food systems – we call upon governments, private sector and farmer organizations to turn promises into action. And let that action be accompanied by investments.’ She then handed over to Mr. Adam Gerstenmier, Executive Director, Food Action Alliance who praised how the continent has mobilized itself to make it a central part of the conversation on the global stage, remarking, ‘Africa was a leader at the UN food summit and is now showing the same leadership in implementation.’ He concluded on a similarly upbeat note, ‘in terms of climate change, Africa is at a crossroads, but there is an unprecedented opportunity for transformation.’

There followed remarks from Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President, AGRA and Host of the AGRF Secretariat who stated the intention to rebrand the AGRF from being a Green Revolution to being a Food Systems Transformation to great applause.

The closing remarks went to H.E. Hailemariam Dessalegn, Chair, AGRF Partners Group and Former Prime Minister, Ethiopia who declared that the progress and commitments that had been made this week were but one part of the puzzle, ‘We need our leaders to act decisively and swiftly to implement the ambitions and practical actions that have been outlined in the AGRF 2022 summit.’

For only the second time in history following the inaugural event last year The Council of the Wise and Elders this morning brought together some of the foremost African leaders and former Heads of State and Government. The council have all lined up behind the promise of supporting initiatives and actions around the continent towards achieving inclusive agriculture and food systems transformation as well as the SDGs commitments. The Council of the Wise is a vision of continuous engagement of leaders across the year, taking advantage of key moments to build and strengthen a common voice and position to deliver an Africa agenda. The Council gives an opportunity for these leaders to bring their considerable experience as former Heads of State and Government to share their insights, review progress, trigger action and support activity.

The session began with the moderator Aggie Konde, Vice President, AGRA setting out the agenda for the day before handing over to Ms. Jennifer Baarn, Managing Director, AGRF for welcome remarks who expressed her gratitude for being in the presence of ‘so many decades of experience.’

Mr. Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was then introduced to the stage as the Keynote speaker who cautioned against what the world would continue to look like if change wasn’t ambitiously pushed, his speech, ‘Our Future with Business as Usual’ whilst sobering struck a positive note in terms of what could be done and was met with enthusiasm from the attendees.

He highlighted the many issues that the continent still faces, ‘Africa is facing overlapping crises which are drivers of the current food and nutrition trends. We need to address the emergency situation of the increase in the food import bill.’  But he also offered solutions, ‘it’s not simply that investment and higher spending is necessary but how best to spend that money’. To embrace the considerable challenges and turn them into opportunities ‘we need to innovate, the way we work with the government, all the systems are interlinked.’

He went on to outline how the current approach to global food systems requires a shift from business as usual to a more calculated and coordinated approach towards building a resilient and sustainable system for humanity and the planet. Recognizing that food systems are big drivers of greenhouse emissions, they also provide an opportunity to innovate with great solutions and exciting pathways moving forward, both for mitigation and adaptation.

Currently African food systems are failing to deliver healthy diets to all and remain a major challenge to environmental sustainability. Healthy diets demand a systems approach that acknowledges the central role and responsibility of different actors and stakeholders across the world, working collaboratively across other key systems to provide better diets for all, while also sustaining the planet for future generations.

Africa can achieve a resilient and sustainable food system through innovation in technology, science and policies tailored to address the needs of countries at a contextual level. The warning was stark however Africa must act now and change the narrative of a hungry continent to becoming one that is food secured, resilient to shocks and environmentally sustainable.

Following the stimulating and though provoking keynote address there followed an engaging panel discussion discussing not just how the continent had fared in the year since the summit in Kenya but what must happen in the coming year. 

H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, Chair, AGRF Partners Group and Former Prime Minister, Ethiopia began with opening remarks and spoke about internal conflicts and how whilst it would be easy to blame the Ukraine conflict they could not ignore the issues on their own doorstep. However, he did express confidence that they could ‘overcome hunger and create opportunities for the young’. He later went on to throw down the gauntlet, ‘I would like to challenge us to share insights that address the challenges that smallholder farmers face. I implore us to work together.’

Joining the panel remotely H.E. Ibrahim Hassane Mayaki, Former Prime Minister, Niger picked up that thread and asked what can we do differently. He encouraged greater inter African trade citing it as being fundamental to success, ‘Trading better internally we have a greater weight in terms of a global trading influence.’ He cited a lack of political will rather than technical issues as being the obstacle to this progress, ‘The technical tools are there, the improvement needs to come from governance.’

H.E. Lionel Zinsou, Former Prime Minister, Benin continued and focused on the growth they had accomplished in the last half a decade and encouraged the need to go further, faster. From inheriting an unviable continent in 1960 where the expected life span in some areas was as low as 28, the continent has made huge leaps forward but as Maximo Torero noted, ‘progress has stalled.’

The final thoughts went to H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn who spoke about the need to ‘relinquish national sovereignty in favour of regional sovereignty’ which would be to the benefit of many.