African leaders have been urged to coordinate domestic and external efforts to urgently and fully tackle food insecurity on the continent.

The appeal was contained in the 2022 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR22) launched yesterday, in Kigali, Rwanda, at the ongoing Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) Summit with the theme, “Accelerating African Food Systems Transformation.”

The document is a yearly publication by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), focusing on emerging issues in world’s second largest continent.

Last year, the report highlighted resilience of Africa’s food systems and importance of sustaining them.

It also underlined six megatrends shaping the development of agrifood systems in Africa that warrant greater attention by stakeholders.

The document examined the role of leadership in harnessing collective efforts, shared responsibility, greater stakeholders’ engagement, as well as rallying political will to achieve food systems’ transformation on the continent.

Further, it presented the investment gap required to trigger and/or sustain Africa’s agro-food transformation reflecting on the requisite human, institutional and systemic capacities and capabilities that are required to achieve agro-food system transformation at scale. And, it recommended priorities for African national governments, development partners and the private sector.

AGRA’s President, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, noted that a combination of the after-effects of the pandemic and the Ukraine conflict have led to increase in of food prices, thus worsening the food insecurity in Africa.

“The AASR22 reflects on key action areas required to tackle the most urgent and important areas in response to these challenges. There is urgent need to repurpose food policies to address the emerging challenges affecting conditions, outcomes and behaviour of our food systems, without compromising the economic, social and environmental fundamentals,” Kalibata added.

The AASR22 challenged African governments to assume a leadership role in food system transformation as a national security, poverty alleviation and rural development agenda that cuts across various institutions, while reducing reliance on donors, who have been directing flows of international assistance. It called for locally led integrated action that brings together key sectors of the economy that are central to food systems, including health, environment, agriculture and education, and is aligned to national needs and priorities.

Research Professor at Cornell University and one of the authors of the report, Dr. Ed Mabaya, said the journey towards food and nutritional security for Africa has a clear destination: zero hunger.

“Thanks to many strategy documents, we have reasonable consensus on the roadmap – sustainable intensification and a food systems approach.

“This report focuses on how we get there faster while adapting to the ever-changing terrain. Time is of the essence,” Mabaya