The African Union Commission (AUC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have reached a new milestone in the implementation of the  2014 AU Malabo Declaration on Agricultural Growth and Transformation through a new project titled, “Ending Hunger in the Horn of Africa: Moving from Rhetoric to Action.”

The objective of the project is to “implement a coherent set of activities intended to improve partnership and coordinated action on ending hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the Horn of Africa by 2025 through providing a consultative forum for governments, regional economic communities (RECs), development partners and stakeholders to discuss, review and develop new strategies on hunger eradication for the sub-region.”

The project is expected to take stock of policies and investments for ending hunger in the Horn of Africa (HoA), to establish national and regional partnership mechanisms for hunger eradication in the HoA; and to encourage advocacy and communication for ending hunger in the Horn of Africa.

Officially opening the ceremony to launch the project, AUC Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, H.E Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, represented by her Senior Advisor and CAADP Team Leader, Mr. Ernest Ruzindaza, noted that the “Ending Hunger in the Horn of Africa” Project was the first project in a range of activities for translating the Malabo Commitments into concrete actions.

“The Horn of Africa with its notable food insecurity challenges, which the recent El Nino effects aggravated, is the right place to start with,” she said. “Malabo is about commitment to actions, results and impact.”

Commissioner Tumusiime declared that the success of the project would provide a strong basis for up-scaling and out-scaling the project to the other regions.

Also speaking at the ceremony, Patrick Kormawa, FAO’s Sub-regional Coordinator for Eastern Africa and Representative to AUC, said, “There is a great opportunity for the HoA to change the narrative of being a hunger prone region, to a hunger free region.”

“What is required is sustained partnerships and strong political commitment to leverage from and scale up already successful programmes and activities to end hunger in Africa. This is why FAO is teaming up with the AU Commission and Member States in the HoA to implement the Malabo Declaration to end hunger in Africa by 2025,” he added.

Accelerating action to end hunger through expanded partnerships

The AU-FAO project will contribute to improved partnerships and coordinated action on ending hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the Horn of Africa by providing a forum for governments, regional economic communities (RECs), development partners and stakeholders to come together to discuss and come up with effective strategies to reduce hunger in the region.

The project will come up with a project proposal/regional programme and a roadmap for hunger eradication in the Horn of Africa; a knowledge and information exchange platform to facilitate dialogue on reducing hunger in the Horn of Africa; and a monitoring and peer review framework for the monitoring of ending hunger in the Horn of Africa.

As part of the sustainability actions of the project, a roadmap for hunger eradication in the Horn of Africa completed with a resource mobilization strategy will be developed to support efforts to scale up hunger eradication initiatives in the Horn of Africa, as well as incorporating a monitoring and review framework to support tracking of country and sub-regional level progress.

All involved partners recognize that there is a need to join efforts from various sectors and stakeholder groups by working with different partners at the national, regional and global scale, including international and regional organizations, civil society, youth, the private sector, the academia, family farmers and others.

The project is in line with a current FAO and AUC development initiatives on the continent on The Renewed Partnership to End Hunger by 2025, which focuses on accelerated action towards ending hunger through expanded partnerships.