Along with other G8 members, the UK is supporting the New Alliance for Food and Nutrition Security, an initiative announced at this year's G8 Summit at Camp David in the US.
The New Alliance aims to improve food security, farming and agribusiness across Africa in order to help pull 50 million people out of chronic poverty over the next 10 years through agriculture sector growth. G8 nations, African countries, aid agencies and 45 leading multinational and African companies committed to supporting the new alliance, which will focus initially in a small number of countries but expand overtime to be a continent wide initiative for sub-Saharan Africa.
The New Alliance will:
- Provide support for investment climate reforms which encourage agricultural sector growth
- Help more farmers access markets by, for example, linking smallholder farmers to markets through investment in rural roads
- Extend insurance services to smallholder farmers to help protect them from future droughts, crop failures or other catastrophes
- Stimulate private sector investment in agriculture
- Increase access to innovative technology for smallholder farmers
- Finally, 45 leading companies will invest over $3 billion to develop agriculture in Africa and will sign up to a new code of responsible investment.
The UK contribution to the New Alliance will include support to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP). The GAFSP programme was established by G8 members and others to help ensure that the commitments made on food security at the L'Aquila Summit in 2009 are delivered in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
GAFSP is supporting smallholder farmers to access higher yielding technologies and more productive farming methods. It will also fund the construction of rural infrastructure needed for the development of more profitable farming such as rural roads and irrigation. And people who depend on farming for their livelihood will be better protected against risk and less vulnerable to shocks.
G20
Specifically the UK supports the G20 Ministers of Agriculture action plan to develop better global information and surveillance systems for timely action to crises like we see in the Horn of Africa today.
We are also supporting the reforms needed to make markets function well and investment more easily available. And we are looking at ways to develop risk management tools so that when shocks like tornadoes, earthquakes or drought do happen in a country, they are better able to cope and recover.