N E P A D/AU, FGN
The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Chairman NEPAD implementation committee, His Excellency, Chief Olusegun Obasanja, has called for a summit on Food Security in Africa Availability, Accessibility and Affordability from 4th - 7th December 2006 in Abuja, Nigeria
The Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria through its Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will host the summit in collaboration with NEPAD and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The summit will bring together African Heads of States and other key stakeholders from AU Member States, Regional Econmic Communities, Civil Societies, institutions and International Organizations to discuss and produce a revised food security Action Plan and appropriate strategies to be adopted by each nation to tackle the issue of national and continental food security
SUMMIT CONCEPT NOTE
 
Beyond Diagnosis and Prescription to Focused Action

The appalling severity of Africa 's food insecurity and how best to escape it has in recent years and even months been the subject of many meetings at all levels in the region. Most notable fora have been the landmark African Union summits at Maputo (July 2003) and at Sirte (February 2004) which now serve as reference points for all else that is discussed on this issue. Africa is also party to global commitments made under the Plan of Action of the UN's 1996 World Food Summit organised by FAO and seeks to achieve the Millennium Development Goals set under the auspices of the UN. Broken into elements that would allow discrete monitoring and reporting, the Maputo Summit generated some 15 areas of action while the Sirte summit reiterated three of these and added nearly 40 of its own. It may be noted that the Maputo and Sirte commitments cover the entire spectrum of agriculture and food security interventions from farm, through post-harvest and processing to marketing and trade; they also cover enabling conditions for success such as financing, human capacities, research and technology.
 
Since Sirte, an unceasing list of AU, FAO, and other international meetings have identified the needed priority investments and activities to address the high levels of food insecurity in Africa . Over the years, it has become clear that if Africa is short of anything, it is neither diagnosis nor prescriptions; it is implementation of already well-known remedies and sustained application of adequate and focused effort and resources to the challenges. A glance at the listing of commitments offers an insight into what may be among the problems: an extremely wide front for action and limited selectiveness in what to pay most attention to and in what sequence. In a region marked by poverty and therefore limited public capacity to invest for development, spreading efforts and resources thinly over all possible areas of intervention has little prospect of succeeding; this being the case, the Abuja Summit can perhaps make its greatest contribution by taking the first step towards focus on a few areas of commitment for Africa to dedicate the bulk of its energies to. It is believed that if this were done and applied in practice, Africa might have significant progress to compliment itself for a few years down the road.
 
Objectives of the Food Security Summit in Abuja , Nigeria

While recognizing the national, regional, continental, and international efforts to address equity, peace and good governance, policy, and health issues, there is general concern that the implementation of CAADP-Sirte is not moving at the right pace to make a significant contribution to the attainment of MDGs by 2015. In line with the NEPAD philosophy of increasing reliance on Africa 's own resources, the challenge of the 2006 ABUJA Food Security Summit is to accelerate reduction of food and nutrition insecurity through fostering mind-set change in mobilization and utilization of African resources to implement a few quick wins at national, RECs and continental levels .

The specific objectives of the Food security Summit are:
•

To review progress in complying with the AU/NEPAD 2003 Maputo Declaration commitment. Particular attention will be given to renewing commitment to increasing investment in activities with the greatest and earliest gains in productivity and competitiveness: (a) infrastructure (particularly roads, ports, storage and market structures), and (b) water control (irrigation capacity at appropriate scales), and (c) creation of an appropriate environment to encourage the private-sector (including small-scale producers) to invest.

i.e. enhanced purchasing power of the people to have access to balanced nutrition and optimum caloric intake
•

To review progress to enhance African agriculture trade within RECs and the continent and agree on the needed activities to boost trade within and across the RECs as a basis for the future creation of an Africa common market.

•

To review progress to promote good nutrition and to enhance nutritive value of major staple foods and agree on appropriate monitoring and incorporation of nutrition components in food security interventions.

•

To review selected national programmes and projects that are making significant progress in contributing to the attainment of national food and nutrition security. The emphasis is on promoting learning from Africa's own successes by identifying examples of good performance and supporting activities to facilitate dissemination of information about and exposure of national teams to such successes with a view to encouraging adaptation, replication and out/up-scaling.

•

To select for particular attention in implementation key food security-related AU decisions, to consolidate the rest and to agree on arrangements for effective monitoring of action.

   
Expected Outcomes of the Food Security Summit in Abuja , Nigeria
1.
Enhanced m obilization of resources to implement priority food and nutrition security interventions at national, REC and continental levels, with emphasis on what ensures rapid increase in African production of key commodities.
   
2.
 Enhanced performance of agricultural markets, with particular attention to Africa 's own demand and to promote inter-African trade in staple foods.
   
3.
 Enhanced systematic integration of nutrition considerations into all agricultural and food security interventions
   
4.
 Identified African successes to be supported in sharing of positive experiences with a view to adaptation, replication and up-scaling
   
5.
 Established system for selecting key AU/NEPAD CAADP-related Summit commitments on which action to implement will be ensured and compliance monitored.