On the eve of the U.S.-African Leaders Summit, the African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with the African Leaders for Nutrition, the Nutrition CEO Council, and the African Union Commission, organized a high-level discussion where participants emphasized the enormous potential for investment in the food value chain on the continent.
The leaders urged the American government and the international community to prioritize nutrition in frameworks and policies at the international level and to increase funding for nutrition in Africa. They emphasized the potential for American and African countries to work together to address the continent’s nutrition problems.
Lesotho’s Prime Minister Ntsokoane Matekane, who spoke at the ceremony, emphasized that the African Year of Nutrition is a chance to acknowledge the advancements made and to lay out additional measures that must be taken to alleviate child malnutrition.
“Several regional commitments have been made as part of the AU Year of Nutrition, which recently culminated in the Abidjan Declaration, adopted on the December 8, 2022 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The declaration calls for accelerated investment, implementation, and coordination to improve nutrition and food security in Africa,” he said.
USAID Deputy Administrator Isobel Coleman said: “With sufficient targeted resources and simple, evidence-based interventions, this [malnutrition] crisis is not only treatable but preventable. Last year alone, USAID supported nutrition programming that reached over 25 million children with nutrition-specific interventions in 21 African countries.”
She added: “Thanks to bipartisan support in Congress, the U.S. Government is committing $760 million to expand and scale agricultural programs that support farmers and communities around the world buffeted by rising food, fuel, and fertiliser prices. As Covid-19, climate change, and Putin’s war against the people of Ukraine continue to undermine food systems, it is on all of us to keep striving to feed the world.”
Dr. Beth Dunford, Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development at the African Development Bank, made the point that it is critical to provide “affordable, safe, nutritious food to address the crisis of hunger, malnutrition, and famine that many parts of the African continent are experiencing.
“Strong health systems with the capacity to support those most vulnerable to malnutrition – women, adolescents, and children – are also essential,” she said.
Ambassadors and senior government representatives from African nations, the AU Commission, members of the international NGO community, including the Nutrition CEO Council, and representatives from U.S. government agencies, including USAID and the State Department, all attended the event. Dr. Eyob Tekalign, Ethiopia’s State Minister of Finance, and Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Rwanda’s Minister of Health, were also in attendance.
For the past four years, the African Development Bank has redirected $2.8 billion of its investment portfolio for “nutrition-smart” initiatives, meaning Bank projects will have one or more nutrition-related objectives or goals, a nutrition-related activity or intervention, and a nutrition-related indicator at the outcome or impact level.
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