1 / 13

VIEWPOINT FROM SADC-FANR ON FOOD SYSTEMS AND VULNERABILITY RESEARCH INTERESTS

VIEWPOINT FROM SADC-FANR ON FOOD SYSTEMS AND VULNERABILITY RESEARCH INTERESTS. Presented at GECAFS Southern Africa Food Systems and Vulnerability Workshop, 6 – 8 December 2004, Gaborone, Botswana. Mr Bentry P. Chaura Senior Economist/Statistician

owena
Download Presentation

VIEWPOINT FROM SADC-FANR ON FOOD SYSTEMS AND VULNERABILITY RESEARCH INTERESTS

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. VIEWPOINT FROM SADC-FANR ON FOOD SYSTEMS AND VULNERABILITY RESEARCH INTERESTS Presented at GECAFS Southern Africa Food Systems and Vulnerability Workshop, 6 – 8 December 2004, Gaborone, Botswana. Mr Bentry P. Chaura Senior Economist/Statistician SADC Directorate of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources

  2. HISTORY AND RATIONALE OF SADC • Political motives • Social motives • Economic motives • The SADC vision • A common future in a regional community that will ensure economic well-being, improved standards of living and quality of life, freedom, social justice, peace and security for the peoples of Southern Africa. • The ultimate objective is the eradication of poverty.

  3. THE SADC OBJECTIVES • Achieve development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the peoples of Southern Africa and support the socially disadvantaged; • Evolve common political values, systems and institutions; • Promote and defend peace and security; • Promote self-sustaining development on the basis of collective self-reliance and the interdependence of Member States;

  4. OBJECTIVES cont… • Achieve complementarity between national and regional strategies and programmes; • Promote and maximize productive employment and utilization of resources of the region; • Strengthen and consolidate the long-standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the peoples of the region

  5. THE RISDP • Our agenda for the next 15 years. • RISDP =Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan • Strategies • Further liberalize intra-regional trade (FTACustoms Union Common Market) and become globally competitive • Sustainable food security • Infrastructure support for regional integration • Improve the availability of educated, skilled, healthy, flexible, productive and efficient Human resources • Equality between gender • Strengthen Science &Technology, Information and Research, Private Sector Development

  6. SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITYProblem Specification: Example (excl. DRC) reg. prdt

  7. SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITYOther Problems include: • high dependence on rainfed agriculture; • High dependence on maize – little diversification; • Declining support to farmers; • under-utilisation of land resources; • poor infrastructure (transport, markets, communication, storage facilities) especially in rural areas; • High incidences of pests and diseases for livestock and crops

  8. MAJOR INTERVENTION AREAS FOR SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY 1. Ensuring Food Availability: Major components such as: • - Food production, productivity and profitability; • - Conservation management of natural resources; • - Control and eradication of agro – pests and diseases; • - Regional agricultural input markets development; • - Access to Agricultural land; • - Promotion of labour saving agric. support systems; • - encouraging public and private investments. • etc

  9. MAJOR INTERVENTION AREAS cont… • 2. Ensuring Access to Food: through • Promoting rural non-farm income generating activities, including agro-processing • Promoting entrepreneurship development in rural areas • Promoting agri-business • Promoting effective food storage systems and preservation techniques.

  10. MAJOR INTERVENTION AREAS cont… • 3. Enhancing Nutritional Value of Food: • Promoting standardization and improving quality of processing, packaging, preparation and preservation of food. • Promoting consumer/food education and awareness. • Promoting the consumption of nutritious food, especially among vulnerable groups, such as people living with HIV/AIDS, under five children, pregnant women and old people. • Promoting effective co-ordination with other stakeholders, particularly Water and Infrastructure.

  11. MAJOR INTERVENTION AREAS cont… • 4. Enhancing Disaster Preparedness: • Broadening and strengthening the early warning system to cover food availability, access to food and information on staple food markets, including prices; • Expanding and strengthening vulnerability monitoring capabilities; • Establishing a reserve facility and/or physical stocks above national requirements; and promoting safety nets. • Adopting measures to ensure availability of and access to agricultural inputs; and rehabilitating infrastructure.

  12. POSSIBLE RESEARCH INTERESTS Required: Practical solutions to the region’s identified problems a) National level: What can MS do – eg to improve production/ productivity / crop diversification/ etc ? b) Regional level: What can be done at regional level? How can regional integration be a vehicle to solve the problems? – trade, specialization? IN GENERAL: WHY DO WE SEEM NOT MAKING ANY HEADWAY IN SOLVING THE PROBLEMS?

  13. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

More Related