Africa: East Africa Food Insecurity in Need of Climate-Smart Solutions

Addis Ababa, — East Africa’s escalating food insecurity, fueled by climate change is in need of innovative climate-smart solutions, according to IGAD and ILRI experts.

Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Food System Resilience Project Coordinator, Senait Regassa told ENA that the IGAD region is prone to food insecurity and requires innovative climate-smart solution.

For Senait, the number one challenge for the region’s food security is climate change and variability that disrupts food production, both for the farming and pastoralist communities.

The effects of climate change are occurring more frequently than the past decade–intensifying the problems, affecting the food security of more people in the region, she pointed out.

She added this is on top of other socio-economic challenges such as price shocks and also conflicts in parts of the region.

“Climate change and variability is the number one challenge, not only drought, but also floods that disrupt food production, marketing and all the activities within the food system sectors,” Senait emphasized.

“Member states of IGAD are making efforts to rise up to this challenge. I can mention Ethiopia as one of them for being one of the major food producers in the region, also trying different approaches, thinking out of the box–producing food in areas where we were not producing earlier using irrigation. That’s one of the commendable things.”

Meanwhile, she stated that IGAD plays crucial role in policy harmonization, knowledge sharing, capacity building, and cascading continental frameworks to the national levels, pointing out the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) as an example.

“I can cite CAADP to which member states of IGAD are committed, and IGAD is playing its coordination role of cascading this framework to the national level by supporting member states through different means based on the demands that comes from the member states.”

Senait also pointed out the importance of data collection and reporting for effective agricultural development, noting that IGAD is providing training to member states to enhance their capacity in this area.

“Sometimes member states lag behind from meeting the target not because they have not done well in that area, or in that segment, but because of lack of capacity of collecting the data and reporting it in the right way,” she noted.

Dawit Solomon, Regional Coordinator at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), similarly expressed his concern about the impact of climate change on agriculture highlighting the importance of accessible climate information services and climate-smart agriculture technologies for smallholder farmers.