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The Platform for Agricultural Risk Management (PARM), the African Union Development Agency of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) have shared key insights to accelerating investments for inclusive and holistic agricultural risk management in Africa during the commemoration of the 20th edition of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Partnership Platform (CAADP-PP), the 15th Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security (ADFNS), and the associated Malabo Policy Learning Event (MAPLE) held from 29 October to 1 November 2024 in Harare, Zimbabwe.
As over 300 delegates from the African Union (AU) member states and financial and technical partners have come together to reflect on the nexus between nutrition, food systems and education at the 20th CAADP-PP and the ADFNS-15, PARM, AUDA-NEPAD and COMESA have showcased, during a side-event, the results achieved through agriculture and food insecurity risk management, contributing to enhanced productivity and building the resilience of agri-food systems in Africa.
Since 2013, PARM has been working in strategic partnership with AUDA-NEPAD to support the African Union member states mainstream a holistic approach to Agricultural Risk Management (ARM) in their development and investment plans. During the 1st phase of its programme, PARM focused its intervention on generating quantitative and qualitative evidence of the risks that have the potential to affect the countries’ economies, while in its 2nd phase, PARM is supporting governments in designing investments programmes to implement risk management tools identified in the generated evidence.
Jean-Claude Bidogeza, PARM Technical Specialist, presented some key risk management tools identified in Africa including crop and livestock insurance, warehouse receipt system, agroecology, contract farming, remittances, market information systems, farmers’ structuring, capacity building, etc. “These tools can only be implemented efficiently if decision makers create an enabling policy environment”, Bidogeza said. Therefore, he called upon institutions, governments and technical and financial partners to increase their support to ARM initiatives so that risks are addressed in a holistic and integrated manner in order to de-risk investments in the agricultural sector and improve African small-scale farmers livelihoods.
Sharing the lessons learned from their partnership with PARM, Zodidi Sivetshe, AUDA-NEPAD Programme Officer, Agriculture, and Food Insecurity Risk Management, highlighted that holistic and inclusive approach to agriculture is not just about agri-food systems, but also about environmental conservation in light of emerging climate change challenges. According to her, AU member states have already committed to enhancing resilience and climate variability under the Malawi Declaration, focusing on building resilient agri-food systems in Africa through effective risk management to increase agricultural production and productivity.
On behalf of COMESA, Providence Mavubi, Director of Industry and Agriculture, underlined the importance of creating a conducive regulatory to strengthen member states capacity to better manage agricultural risks. COMESA’s interventions in ARM include drought-resistant seeds, improved irrigation methods and soil conservation techniques as well as access to finance through COMESA trade development bank and the simplified trade regime (STR). The latter allows small-scale cross border traders, including farmers, to access the privileges of the COMESA Free Trade Area, and to reduce the time spent at borders through simplification of border procedures.
Agricultural risk management is key to de-risk investments in the agricultural sector, improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and contribute to a future in which productive, sustainable and healthy agri-food systems can feed a global population of 9.1 billion people by 2050.
