Agriculture Self-Reliance Project

AFRICA FORUM AGRICULTURE FOR SELF-RELIANCE PROJECT (ASRP): Leadership for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security INTRODUCTION The prevalence of conflicts in Africa and the impact of the current global food crisis on the continent as well as the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub Sahara Africa pose major challenges to the efforts being deployed by African countries in post-conflict reconstruction and development towards building developmental capable states in Africa. The leadership on the continent has expressed commitment and determination to address these multiple challenges at national, regional and sub-regional levels. Indeed, African countries, particularly those emerging from conflict are grappling with the development of policy measures and mechanisms to address the root causes of the conflicts, food security and the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Most of these countries are working to design national, sub-regional and regional interventions that would simultaneously address the root causes of conflict, find a durable solution to food insecurity, and provide better services and care to those infected and affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Broadly, the preoccupation at the level of Africa is the search for viable national, regional and sub-regional strategies based on a holistic and integrated approach that recognizes the centrality of the people in development. The envisaged strategy must be able to prevent conflicts, promote food self-reliance, address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and provide an enabling environment towards building developmental capable states in Africa. Conflicts accelerate abject poverty, cause food insecurity and allow for rapidly spreading of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The linkage between conflicts and food insecurity is clear. So too is the linkage between food insecurity and the inability of most African countries to mitigate the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the effected populations and other vulnerable groups within the Continent. Therefore, there is an imperative need to put in place policy frameworks and measures as well as mechanisms capable of simultaneously addressing the root causes of conflicts in Africa, the rapidly escalating food crisis, and as well as measures to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. Against this background, the Forum for Former African Heads of State and Government, commonly known as the Africa Forum (AF), has decided to initiate a tripartite partnership involving the Forum, African countries emerging from conflicts, and the Private Sector, namely Edge2Edge (E2E) to form a consortium (AF-E2E Consortium) and jointly play a major advocacy role in promoting agriculture for self-reliance in Africa. In this regard, the Africa Forum with technical support from Edge2Edge Global Investment Limited (E2E) has designed and elaborated the Agriculture and Nutrition for Self-Reliance Project (ASRP). The ASRP aims at addressing the root causes of conflict in these countries through national dialogue and reconstruction, promoting agriculture for self reliance through community based and large scale agricultural projects and mobilizing national and international support to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in these countries. The ASRP takes into account the reality that post conflict reconstruction and development in most African countries emerging from conflict cannot be sustained without an environment of peace and security, food self-reliance, and capacity to restore confidence among those who had lost hope as a result of conflicts and the social and economic impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The ASRP focuses on ten African countries emerging from conflicts, which includes: the Republic of Burundi; the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire; the Democratic Republic of Congo, (DRC); the Republic of Guinea Bissau; the Republic of Liberia; the Republic of Kenya; the Republic of Sierra Leone; the Somali Republic; the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of Uganda (Northern Uganda). In addition to those countries and given the extent of the level of the HIV/AIDS infection, the ASRP will also focus in the Republic of Mozambique and the Republic of Botswana. Chronic food shortage, malnutrition and wide spread hunger is affecting the large population of 230 million people living in these countries. ASRP is predicated upon overall objectives of conflict prevention, food self-reliance and combating HIV/AIDS. The expected outputs of the Agriculture for Self Reliance project (ASRP) are: Creation of an environment of peace and security through National Dialogue and reconciliation; Increase the level of food self sufficiency; Increase of the income generation activities based in agriculture and; (d) less dependent on food imports. The recipient countries are expected to have the following roles: Creation of a National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee; Designation and allocation of land for agriculture for self-reliance; Creation of Public Private Partnership for the ASRP and Mobilization of national and international support for ASRP within the framework of policy measures aimed at promoting agriculture for self-reliance. The ASRP will have no financial implications for the countries involved except for the support services. The ASRP constitutes one of the major operational components of the Harmonization of African Society Project (HASP) designed by the Forum for countries emerging from conflict in Africa. HASP placed emphasis on conflict prevention through national dialogue and reconciliation process at the country level. National Dialogue in the ASRP will be based on the orientation of the HASP as a multi-donor project designed by the Africa Forum aimed at harnessing and mobilizing past experiences, skills, knowledge and moral authority of the Forum’s members to promote policies, frameworks and programs for the reconstruction of African countries emerging from conflicts into capable developmental states. It is essentially a project for post conflict reconstruction and development in Africa.
Background Conflict prevention, food security and the HIV/AIDS pandemic have become three of the most important issues of our time. While there is a relative decline in the number of conflicts in Africa the number of people facing hunger is growing and the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is alarming and shocking. With respect to food security, steep rises in the price of staples such as wheat and rice are having an even bigger impact on poor countries leading to food riots in several countries. In Cameroon, more than 20 people have been killed in food riots during this year while in Haiti, protesters chanting, "We're hungry" forced the prime minister to resign. There have also been food riots in Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Madagascar. The World Bank now believes that some 33 countries are in danger of being destabilized by food price inflation, while it could push another 100 million people deeper into poverty. Ten per cent of these will be children under age five (5). Malnutrition already contributes to the deaths of more than 3.7 million children under age 5 every year, and the ones that survive are more likely to suffer and die from diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, acute respiratory illness, malaria, measles, including AIDS. As a result the higher food prices are risking wiping out progress towards reducing poverty and could harm global growth and security. Food price inflation inevitably hits the poor hardest. Food represents about 10 to 20 per cent of consumer spending in the rich world, but as much as 60 to 80 per cent in developing countries, many of which are net food importers. Since January 2007, the price of wheat has risen by as much as two and a half times, while the rice price has almost trebled. According to Joachim Von Braun, Director of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) the food price index calculated by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), rose by nearly 40 percent last year1. The increase had been nine percent the year before. In the first months of 2008 prices had again increased drastically. Since 2000, a year of low prices, the wheat price in international markets had more than tripled, and maize prices had more than doubled. The price of rice had jumped to unprecedented levels last month; while dairy products, meat, poultry, palm oil, and cassava had also experienced price hikes the increases had raised serious concerns about the food and nutrition situation of poor people in developing countries, about inflation, and, in some countries, about civil unrest. The much higher international prices could mean serious hardship for millions of poor urban consumers and poor rural residents who are net food buyers, undermining all the efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, set by world leaders in 2000, aiming at reducing the proportion of hungry people in the world by half by 2015.These people need direct assistance (This means approximately 150 million people will have to be fed on a regular basis). Download the full project whitepaper here.