Alliance Against Hunger Launched

Kwesi Ahwoi - Ghana's Agric Minister

West African states are intensifying their efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goal deadline of halving extreme hunger and poverty by 2015 with the launch of the Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition (AAHM) programme.

The programme is designed to galvanise support from among governments in the sub-region towards the elimination of malnutrition and hunger, ahead of the scheduled deadline.

In furtherance of this, participants from all 15 West African states have gathered in Accra, Ghana, for a three-day conference to formally launch the AAHM. The participants, among others, will use the period to brainstorm on formulating meaures to overcome the endemic poverty and malnutrition facing the sub-region.

The AAHM is a global voluntary partnership created on the recommendation of the Wold Food Summit by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Bioversity International.

The conference is on the theme “Uniting West Africa against Hunger and Malnutrition.” The Alliance brings together local and international institutions with the aim of building a national level policy dialogue in the fight against hunger and malnutrition through its support to country-led partnerships.

Opening the conference a former President of Ghana, Mr John Agyekum Kufuor acknowledged that one of the biggest problems facing mankind was how to securely and sustainably feed the world’s ever increasing population, which problem he underscored did not lend itself to an easy solution.

Quoting a report that indicated that more than one billion people, the highest in the world, go hungry daily, Mr Kufuor added that the rising cost of food prices was likely to increase the numbers.

“And there are many hundreds of millions more who, while not hungry, suffer the damaging impact of consistently poor diets,” he said.

As a World Food Price Laurette for 2011, Mr Kufuor who described the challenges the Alliance was attempting to address as crucial and formidable, indicated that without commitment from political leaders to put them into action “our ambitions for fairer and stable world food will be a mirage.”

Attributing food deficit largely to lack of knowledge and good governance, President Kufuor contended that political choices did not tend to reflect the agricultural sector which was still inhabited by majority of the world’s population.

Touching on the effect of human activities on agriculture, he said virgin forest which used to cover more than 40 per cent of Ghana for instance, now covered only seven per cent as a result of indiscriminate felling of timber, mainly for export, noting that raw materials were being exported without value addition for the benefit of the economy.

Mr Kufuor who also launched the Alliance urged governments in the sub-region to streamline their policies in agriculture, food and nutrition to enable people to make use of best practices recalling that during his presidency a land-mark policy was launched in which $500 million from the US government was made available to Ghana for the modernisation and commercialisation of agriculture.

Ghana's Agriculture Minister, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, said the government considered the Alliance as one with potential to contribute towards agricultural transformation for improved food security in West Africa.

Ghana, in its effort , he stated had developed a Medium Term Agricultural Sector Investment Plan (METASIP) to implement the Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy in the medium term (2011-2015).

Mr Ahwoi called on the Alliance to help in policy and institutional reforms that would enhance the development of the agricultural sector in the sub-region.

The FAO representative in Ghana, Mr Musa Saihou Mbenga, in his address said West Africa was making strides in food sufficiency and food security although there was still more to be done.

The FAO, he observed, had over the years played an important role in the sub-region in its contribution to sustainable food security.