His Excellency Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi on 1st July, 2021 will host a Pre- United Nations Food System Summit 2021 Dialogue for African Heads of State and Governments. H.E. Chakwera has rallied the African Heads of State as part of mobilizing continental level response to the UN Food Systems Summit called by the UN Secretary General, António Guterres. The African Heads of State Food Systems Summit dialogue will be a virtual event (see link).
The UN 2021 Food Systems Summit is part of the decade of action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The summit will launch bold new actions to deliver progress on all the 17 SDGs, each of which relies to some degree on healthier, more sustainable and equitable food systems. The Summit will awaken the world to the fact that we all must work together to transform the way the world produces, consumes, and thinks about food. And importantly, develop resilience to the vagaries associated with climate change and natural resource degradation. It is a Summit for everyone everywhere and as such a people’s summit. It is also a solutions Summit that will require everyone to take action to transform the world’s food systems.
The Summit brings together key players from the worlds of science, business, policy, healthcare and academia, as well as farmers, indigenous people, youth organizations, consumer groups, environmental activists, and other key stakeholders. Before, during and after the summit, these actors will come together to agree on key actions to bring about tangible, positive changes to the world’s food systems
The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit seeks to deliver the following outcomes:
- Generate significant action and measurable progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by identifying solutions and leaders, and issuing a call for action at all levels of the food system, including national and local governments, companies and citizens.
- Raise awareness and elevate public discussion about how reforming our food systems can help us all to achieve the SDGs by implementing reforms that are good for people and planet.
- Develop principles to guide governments and other stakeholders looking to leverage their food systems to support the SDGs. These principles will set an optimistic and encouraging vision in which food systems play a central role in building a fairer, more sustainable world. Principles of engagement
- Create a system of follow-up and review to ensure that the Summit’s outcomes continue to drive new actions and progress. This system will allow for the sharing of experiences, lessons and knowledge; it will also measure and analyse the Summit’s impact.
His Excellency Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera seeks to build a collective voice and raft of actions from among African Heads of State as part of Africa’s contribution to the global agenda as well as developing common solutions for sustainable and inclusive food systems in the continent. This Heads of State Summit builds on a series of Food Systems dialogue events that have been organised at country level and have generated a number of recommendations for delivering bold new actions to deliver progress on all the 17 SDGs by 2030. The Summit will also consider other recommendations that have come from various dialogues at Sub-regional (North Africa and Middle East, East and Southern Africa, Central Africa, and West Africa), and continental (Africa Ministers’ Policy Dialogue, Vice Chancellors Forum and Selected Advocates for Africa’s Development, and global levels (Global Networks and Global Youth) that RUFORUM has convened.
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