"Resilience is the best tool we have to advance to protect our development gains"

Resilience is indeed the best tool the globe has to advance to protect development gains, says President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Abdulla Shahid.

He said this in his remarks at the High-Level Policy Dialogue of the 2022 Africa Dialogue Series (ADS), on Thursday.

Noting that this year’s dialogue focuses on resilience in nutrition and food security, under the shadow of the threat of famine, of rising food prices and of supply chain breakdowns and stress, the PGA noted that combined with armed conflicts, the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted supply chains of food and essential materials.

He described these factors to be driving food prices to new highs and threatening lives and livelihoods.

Stressing that food security was already a challenge in Africa, PGA Shahid noted that recent events have shed the spotlight on how Africa’s challenges are exaggerated by external shocks.

He said that the continued and ever-increasing impacts of climate change adds to these challenges, as floods and droughts in Africa and throughout the world continue to impact agricultural production.

In this regard, he said that Africa Dialogue Series (ADS) presents four main dimensions of resilience that need to be addressed to ensure long-term sustainability through its sub-themes.

Firstly, he said that food systems are the thread that links farmers, communities, and their environment, adding that promoting resilience in this context implies prioritizing data and evidence-based planning exercises that consider the specific context of each country, and looks into the long-term.

As a second dimension of resilience, he said that digitization is a “gamechanger” that can easily support increases in production. As such, he noted that financing for small holder farmers is an indispensable tool that can enable African farmers access to the latest technologies to improve their productivity.

Thirdly, PGA Shahid said that food-based social protection initiatives, such as school-feeding programmes are essential to build resilience against socio-economic crises, to address malnutrition and to invest in Africa’s greatest resource which is its youth.

Finally, PGA Shahid said that understanding the food-climate-energy nexus is critical to achieving resilience.

He noted that implementing climate smart agricultural technology, including off-grid renewable energy solutions to deploy irrigation systems is crucial to equip African farmers with the tools they require to overcome the risks presented by climate change.