Nouakchott - Ministers from around Africa gathered in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania's capital today to agree on ways the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) can help their countries revive progress towards reducing hunger over the next two years.
This week's 34th Session of the Regional Conference for Africa (ARC34) indicated priority regional and local themes and areas for FAO to take into account while preparing the Programme of Work and Budget for the next biennium, and aligning with FAO's Strategic Framework, Medium-Term Plan and country programming frameworks.
FAO Director-General QU Dongyu urged Ministers to leverage the continent's youthful demographics to bolster food production and distribution. "I am here to tell you a new story, a story of opportunity, a story of abundance - a story of transformation and prosperity," he said.
"For too long, the narrative surrounding Africa's agriculture has been one of challenges - of vulnerability, of import dependence, and of unfulfilled potential," he added.
Technology, ranging from drought-resistant seeds to digital extension services, offer an opportunity to "bypass the limitations of the past" and unlock continent's agricultural potential, even turning it into "the breadbasket of the world," he added.
According to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025, more than one in five people in Africa were undernourished in 2024, five percentage points higher than in 2010. While Africa often bears the consequence of climate and conflict shocks created elsewhere, strengthening the continent's own production capacity is now a strategic necessity as well as a development priority.
Noting that Africa holds 60 percent of the world's uncultivated arable land and has plenty of water, the Director-General called for bold choices focused on improving infrastructure connecting rural producers to urban markets, using the African Continental Free Trade Area to turn fragmented markets into a single, powerful engine of growth, and focused prioritization of science and innovation. "FAO is your partner in this journey," Qu said.
Ministerial meeting
ARC34 began earlier this week with technical meetings, culminating in Thursday's main event, attended by the Islamic Republic of Mauritania's Prime Minister, Mokhtar Ould Djay.
Special events and ministerial round tables were held on a number of themes including the drivers and triggers of agrifood systems transformation in Africa, nuclear science-based agrifood investment-ready solutions, financing agrifood systems, and managing transboundary pests and diseases such as Fall Armyworm, Rift Valley fever, banana Fusarium wilt TR4 and various crop ailments.
Other core themes at the meeting were how to promote sustainable land, soil and water management amid mounting regional pressures driven by land degradation, climate change, weak tenure arrangements and chronic underinvestment; ways to shift from reactive responses to crises towards anticipatory, multirisk-informed approaches to bolster the resilience of agrifood systems; and how to leverage Africa's vast natural capital so that biodiversity and biomass can underpin inclusive growth and food security for all; and plans to integrate the blue economy and aquatic foods into national agricultural policies and investment plans.
Considerable time was spent exploring ways that FAO can help Members roll out implementation of the African Union's "Kampala CAADP Strategy and Action Plan (2026 - 2035)", which aims to mobilize $100 billion in new resources, lift agrifood output by 45 per cent, triple intra-African trade in farm goods, and cut post-harvest losses in half.
"Delivery is credibility"
Achieving the ambitious yet necessary objectives Africa's countries have set will require consistent resources from all quarters. Tightening fiscal space is making international development finance more selective, while private investment requires confidence, FAO's Director-General noted.
"Together, we must make the case that investing in Africa's agrifood systems delivers strong returns - for people, for economies and for the future of the continent," he said. "Delivery is credibility."
FAO has streamlined its own operational approaches and has proven agile in tapping blended finance to help Members derisk their agrifood systems. Countries can do more, notably by increasing credit to agriculture, which currently accounts for just two percent of total bank lending in Africa despite absorbing nearly half the continent's labor force.
Fostering the fourth of the Four Betters - a Better Life, leaving no one behind - will be an essential part of success, and in Africa that means in particular catering to the unserved needs of youth and women, Qu said. "We must make agriculture attractive - not as a last resort, but as a thriving, high-tech, profitable enterprise."
