Speaking yesterday at the opening of our ‘drylands food security and resilience early action research and evidence dialogue,’ Dr Namukolo Covic, ILRI Director General’s Representative to Ethiopia and CGIAR Ethiopia Country Convenor, called for participants’ research to “guide policies and strategies that support sustainable adaptive and mitigation practices at all levels.”
She argued that research must foster resilience “now, and over time”, so it enhances resilient food security (in the longer term) and saves lives (in emergencies).
Here we provide her full opening remarks.
Welcome to this important dialogue and to ILRI and CGIAR in Ethiopia.
This dialogue is testament to our collective commitment to address the pressing challenges faced by dryland communities, in Africa.
Ethiopia, where you are holding this dialogue, is a country that has been severely impacted by frequent droughts and floods and stands to benefit from the work you will discuss on how our collective efforts can build resilience and ensure food security in vulnerable drylands.
As I prepared what remarks to make, my attention was drawn to the 5 thematic areas you have provided. I will use these to structure my remarks to you today and call for action.
1. Building Resilience to Shocks and Risks: Drylands like those in Ethiopia are no strangers to climatic shocks. The recurrent droughts and floods devastate livelihoods, disrupt food production, and make poverty challenges worse. The shocks are often made worse by conflict. Building resilience to such shocks is critical to sustaining food security in a region where it is estimated that up to 60 million pstoralists and agro-pastoralists live. It is therefore important to enhance the capacity of affected communities to withstand and recover from shocks of climate variability.
Resilience will come from not only improving infrastructure but also fostering social cohesion and empowering local communities to take proactive measures.
2. Improving forecasts: For this, accurate and timely data is the cornerstone of effective early action. In Ethiopia and elsewhere it is increasingly acknowledged that integrating advanced forecasting techniques with local knowledge can significantly improve our ability to predict and respond to risks. Our technological advances also imply we could leverage machine learning to enhance early warning systems.
But we must ensure that the information is accessible and actionable by all types of stakeholders in diverse and useful ways that can inform decisions and allocation of resources more efficiently across diverse contexts.
3. Advancing Locally Led Early Action: This will be the focus of much of these two days. It really goes without saying that local communities are the first responders to any crisis!It is therefore critical that our efforts advance locally led early action by communities who have, in their own way, developed unique coping mechanisms over generations. What lessons can we learn from these generations worth of experiences?
4. Rethinking Early Action for Pastoralist Communities: Yes, the climate crisis is affecting everyone, but pastoralist communities face unique challenges that require tailored solutions because of their unique ways of life. Our usual early action frameworks may not always be the most suitable for these communities. So, it is good to see that rethinking of approaches to develop innovative solutions that address specific needs is an area of focus. This must include consideration of how support could be best provided for mobile livestock systems, improving access to water and grazing resources, and ensuring that early warning systems are designed with the pastoralist way of life in mind.
5. Improving the Use and Usefulness of Data: If data is not useful, it simply has no value! We must improve both the use and usefulness of data by All. This calls for enhancing data collection, analysis, and dissemination processes. As you dialogue over these two days, I hope you will scrutinize the need for/and how you will provide capacity sharing with local stakeholders on interpreting and using data in addition to making data more accessible to different types of stakeholders.
Finally let me conclude with a call to action by challenging you!
As part of the UNFSS process that started in 2021, the countries you seek to serve with your research have developed food systems transformation pathways and roadmaps. Where do the evidence from the Jameel observatory and partner efforts for food security early action fit in these country transformation efforts?
Last week the African Union launched the next 10-year comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development program – the Kamapala Declaration. Again, where do the Jameel Observatory and partner efforts fit in this continental program?
If you address these questions, you can build continental momentum from the work you will be discussing beyond your countries of focus.
Our research and evidence must guide policies and strategies that support sustainable adaptive and mitigation practices at all levels to foster resilience in the now, and over time, because shocks are expected to affect the communities you seek to support even more frequently.
The research must enhance resilient food security action!
The research must save lives!