Speech of Dr. Babagana Ahmadu Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Sudan in celebration of World Food Day 2022

This year the celebration of World Food Day 2022 Call to leave no one behind comes at critical juncture for global food security coincides with the creation the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1945.  

The celebration takes place at a time when global food security is facing threats from multiple directions, with soaring food, energy and fertilizer prices adding to traditional drivers such as the climate crisis and long-standing conflicts.

Globally 828 million people in 2021 were food insecure and 3.1 billion people still cannot afford a healthy diet.

In Sudan the combined multi-layers of crises, range from economic down turn, high inflation, climate change hazards and erratic rain, internal conflicts, CoViD 19, and impact of Ukrainian crisis are significantly affecting people’s access to food.  The latest acute food insecurity data indicates that up to 11.6 million people likely to be food insecure and classified under crisis and emergency phases.

As is so often the case, it is the most vulnerable who are hit the hardest: Women, youth, rural farmers and herders. They are often the ones who struggle the most to gain access to agriculture inputs, training, finance, innovation and technologies and markets.

The number of food insecure people can continue to increase if no urgent measures are taken by all concerned parties.

In 2022, FAO is supporting over 2.5 million vulnerable people in Sudan with life-saving livelihoods assistance (seeds, veterinary services, livestock restocking, cash transfer, water infrastructure rehabilitation, training capacity building and others) to enhance the resilience of their agriculture-based livelihoods, and will continue to mobilize resources to keep producing food and protect more vulnerable people.

While FAO is committed to increasing the resilience of the vulnerable smallholder farmers, agro-pastoralists and pastoralists who are critical for producing a third of the Sudan’s food, it is also convinced that the root causes of under-performance (policy and strategy issues, weak institutional framework and human resources, unsustainable management of natural resources, land legislation, rural finance and others) in agriculture must be addressed by supporting long term development interventions  in order to produce better and sustainability.

The achievement of the SDG Zero Hunger Goal of leave no one behind, requests Sudan to unlock its unique potential in terms of huge available of arable land, water resources, livestock products, youth population and use a agro food systems approach  to contribute to sustainable agriculture crops, livestock and fishery production. More predictable and consistent public investment in agriculture sector, rehabilitation of rural infrastructure, support to smallholders’ farmers and herders who formed the backbone of food production for food and nutrition security in Sudan will be urgently needed.

FAO will use its comparative advantage as a UN technical agency, specialized in agriculture sector and work in partnership with the Rome Based agencies (WFP and IFAD) and other UN organizations, relevant stakeholders, line ministries and technical institution, NGOS, Civil Society Organizations, private sector and others to guide its response to address the mounting food insecurity crisis in Sudan and sustainably contribute to the SDG Zero hunger goal.