Africa Common Position Anchors Approach to UN Food Summit
The Africa Common Position, which will help guide Africa’s food system policymaking and programming over the next 10 years, will be presented at the September 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.
With Policy LINK support, the African Union (AU) hosted the last in a series of meetings to develop the Africa Common Position in preparation for the Pre-Summit of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), taking place July 26-28, 2021.
Intended for ministers of agriculture, the July 15 virtual meeting drew representatives of all 55 member states. Participants proposed numerous improvements to the draft Common Position, including greater emphasis on evidence-based interventions, scalable and politically viable solutions, investment in research and innovation, the inclusion of rural women and youth, mapping and gazettement of agricultural land, and government-to-government learning. Policy LINK has provided technical and logistical support for the process, which needed to be carried out in the four AU languages and required comments and suggestions to be integrated into the Common Position. Furthermore, Policy LINK facilitated an Africa Youth Dialogue as input into the broader dialogue process.
The Africa Common Position, which will help guide Africa’s food system policymaking and programming over the next 10 years, will be presented to the UNFSS pre-summit in late July and to the summit in September. The pre-summit will set the stage for September’s gathering, which seeks to leverage global food systems to deliver progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. Policy LINK is supporting the African Union to prepare for both summits through its “backbone support” to the institutions implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.