Advancing climate smart, nature positive and nutritious agriculture and food systems in Africa

Increasing frequency of extreme weather conditions, conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic are among the many challenges facing Africa’s food systems and driving food insecurity. Urgent actions are needed to mitigate these crises without losing sight of the longer-term need for transformative food systems to improve climate resilience and food security across the continent. Building a resilient food system in Africa entails deep transformations of the agricultural sector to yield long-term impact, through a whole systems approach that boost value addition capacity in Africa from farm to consumer.

More than ever before the challenge is one of implementation and investment. Although there are examples of resilient farmers and innovative pilots exploring incentives and innovative financial models across the continent, more needs to be done to strengthen the economic underpinnings that connect input suppliers, producers, food processors, retailers and consumers in the value chain towards climate smart, nature positive agriculture and food systems with lower emissions. For such market transformations to succeed, policy engagement, financial liquidity, and the sharing and availability of innovation and know-how needs to be prioritized.

Read on: How regenerative agriculture can increase Africa’s food production 

This event, which is co-hosted with UN Climate Change High Level Champions team, AGRA, GAIN,
UNDP and UNEP will showcase investable initiatives that are being implemented in Africa, or that are
implementation ready, and discuss the short- and long-term policy, finance actions and technical
know-how needed to mainstream and make food systems in Africa climate-smart, nature-positive,
and nutritious.