Pan-African bloc pledges continued partnership with WFP
NAN-F-44
Partnership
Addis Ababa, June 16, 2017 (Xinhua/NAN) The African Union (AU) on Friday reiterated its commitment to work with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in enhancing the livelihoods of the African citizenry.
Josefa Sacko, AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, made the remarks at the 2017 annual WFP Executive Board meeting in Rome in a statement.
The AU official has lauded WFP for its continued support to hundreds of millions of Africa’s vulnerable populations over the past decades, through various initiatives among others.
This, she said, includes the supplying of food aid, school feeding programmes and promoting smallholder farmers through incentive creation strategies.
Sacko also recognised WFP’s role in advancing the AU’s Agenda 2063.
The agenda for transforming Africa’s agriculture for achieving food and nutrition security to realise sustained economic growth, through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the 2014 Malabo Declaration on Agriculture.
She highlighted the major initiatives that the pan-African bloc has embarked on to include the commitment to ending hunger by 2025.
Others are the efforts to ensure peace and security on the continent as well as empowering Africa’s youth in line with the AU 2017 theme of ‘Harnessing the Demographic Dividend.’’
In 2014, AU heads of states made declaration to ending hunger and poverty by 2025, recalled the Commissioner.
She said that the AU has since developed frameworks for guiding implementation of programmes and investment plans at the country level.
“We also developed and launched a Post-Malabo Business and Operational Plan that includes nine strategic areas, which are directly linked with the goal of ending hunger and malnutrition in Africa.
“We recognise that the new WFP Strategic Plan is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and our 2030 Action Plan of the Africa Agenda 2063,” Sacko said.
She promised to make efforts to advocate that Member States make joint plans for implementing short to long term humanitarian and sustainable developmental activities.
“Those are activities which are aimed at hunger eradication, building resilience to climate change and other humanitarian disasters.” (Xinhua/NAN)
OYE/AFA
====
Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Felix Ajide