L-R: Clemens Breisinger, NPS Initiative Global Lead; Antonia Taiye Simbine, DG, NISER; Senator Bima Mohammed Enagi, Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture; Dawn Thomas, Acting Director, Office of Economic Growth and Environment, USAID/Nigeria; Engr. Ubandoma Ularamu representing the Hon. Minister of Agriculture; and Charlotte Hebebrand, Director of Communications and Public Affairs, IFPRI.
Photo credits: Adetunji Fasoranti/IFPRI
Dawn Thomas, Acting Office Director, Office of Economic Growth and Environment, USAID/Nigeria (Left); Charlotte Hebebrand, Director, IFPRI Communications and Public Affairs (Middle); and Senator Bima Mohammed Enagi, Chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture delivering their remarks/presentations during the Nigeria launch of the 2022 Global Food Policy Report.
Photo credits: Adetunji Fasoranti/IFPRI
View the Nigeria launch of the Global Food Policy Report here
On 23 June 2022, the Abuja office of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) hosted the Nigeria launch of IFPRI’s 2022 Global Food Policy Report: Climate Change and Food Systems and the CGIAR’s National Policies and Strategies for Food, Land and Water Systems Transformation (NPS) Initiative, with some 107 participants representing the Government of Nigeria, civil society actors, researchers and development practitioners in attendance, and more attending virtually.
The Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) is IFPRI’s flagship report which highlights major developments and events in food policy across the globe with a reflection on the past and present situations and serves as a non-technical, evidence-based comprehensive handbook that allows policy makers, practitioners, politicians, and other non-technical consumers interested in food security to make informed decisions. Since the publication of the inaugural issue in 2011, IFPRI continues to support the global community with evidence-based research and information on contemporary development issues through this report.
IFPRI launched the 2022 Global Food Policy Report on May 12, 2022. The report highlights the urgency of accelerating innovation, reforming policies, resetting, market incentives, and increasing financing for sustainable food systems transformation. It sets forth a broad range of policy options for accelerated action by policymakers as well as international forums for policy and investment decision-making. The report continues to receive wide publicity through regional and country-level discussions of its findings and policy recommendations.
In the Nigeria launch event, Charlotte Hebebrand, IFPRI’s Director of Communications and Public Affairs, and Channing Arndt, Director of Environment and Production technology Division, emphasized the important role of food systems in terms of adaptation and mitigation and outlined the need for holistic governance, healthy diets, and sustainable production, improving the efficiency of value chains, ensuring social protection, reorienting financial flows, and investment in research and development. Charlotte echoed the importance of implementing relevant mitigation and adaptation strategies to ensure resilient and sustainable food systems. According to Charlotte, “this is particularly crucial during this period where global food and nutrition security is deteriorating due to rising hunger and malnutrition, climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war”.
John Ulimwengu, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI Africa Division, gave an overview of the GFPR, focusing on the results from Africa. He re-iterated that more than 50 percent of Africa’s population depends on rainfed agri-food systems, led by millions of smallholder farmers across the continent. He attributed the rapid increase in food insecurity (estimated at 5 to 20 percent between 2015 and 2019) in sub-Saharan Africa to excessive flood and drought and suggested the use of digital technologies, prioritization of climate change adaptation, and consistent investment in knowledge generation on climate resilience as some of the way forward to achieve a climate-resilient food system.
The discussants, Prof. Anthonia Ifeyinwa Achike of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Dr. Andrew Kwasari, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Agriculture, Office of the Vice President of Nigeria applauded the policy recommendations of the report. Prof. Achike explained that “although the food system is a major employer and contributor to climate change, it has both social and environmental impact and there is a need for urgent action to either adapt or mitigate as extensively presented in the report”. She encouraged a great focus on youth and gender, innovative finance, the use of solar energy, and agroforestry as key strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Dr. Andrew Kwasari further opined that although the report addresses land use issues, there is a need for more investment to mitigate the impacts of climate change in Nigeria and Africa in general. He added that substantially more than 50% of smallholders in many Sub-Saharan African countries depend on rain-fed agriculture in Africa and called for the development of specialized, Africa-specific tools to measure carbon sequestration.
In their separate remarks during the event, Dawn Thomas, Acting Office Director, Office of Economic Growth and Environment, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Nigeria, Engr. Ubandoma Ularamanu, representing the Hon. Minister, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Senator Bima Mohammed Enagi, Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, reiterated the report’s findings that climate change results in increased food insecurity, water scarcity, displacement of communities, disrupts livelihood, and contributes to conflict, with severe implications for vulnerable communities, in particular, requiring a concerted and proactive set of policies.
Click here to watch the interviews with some of the participants at the Nigeria Launch of the 2022 IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report
This article is cross-posted from the CGIAR website. It was co-authored by Adetunji Fasoranti (IFPRI), Charlotte Hebebrand (IFPRI), Clemens Breisinger (IFPRI), Dolapo Adeyanju (IFPRI), Hyacinth Edeh (IFPRI) and Kwaw Andam (IFPRI)
View launch presentation below
