Africa Development-Focused Meeting toTackle Food Security and Poverty Reduction
By Abdi Ali
Published August 27, 2019
A meeting that focuses on the development of Africa is expected to tackle issues related to food security and poverty reduction on the continent.
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International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), that are organising the conference, say they shall host, on the side lines of the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 7), an event that examines joint strategies to increase food security and poverty reduction for farmers in Africa. They say the event, that shall be held in Yokohama on August 29, shall focus on JICA’s Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment and Promotion (SHEP) that, they say, encourages farmers to move away from ‘growing and selling’ their produce to ‘grow to sell’ in order to achieve zero hunger by investing in smallholder farmers.
Among the high profile personalities lined up to speak during the event are Hiroshi Kato, Senior Vice President of Japan International Cooperation Agency; Gilbert F Houngbo, President of International Fund for Agricultural Development of the United Nations Organization; Moussa Balde, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development of Senegal; and Lucien Fanomezantsoa Ranarivelo, Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Madagascar.
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JICA says SHEP, that was introduced in Kenya in 2006, ‘achieved doubling income of 2,500 smallholders only within 2 years’. This international development arm of the Government of Japan says it has ‘set the wide implementation of the SHEP Approach to countries throughout Africa as one of the pillars of Agricultural cooperation in Africa’. It is in line with this approach that JICA is partnering with the rural development arm of the United Nations, IFAD, on this initiative.
