Finding ways to solve chronic food insecurity in Eastern Africa is one of the subjects to be tackled during a meeting in Kigali, next week.

The Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) meeting, will provide a forum for experts, government ministers, regional economic communities (RECs) and other stakeholders to discuss how best to handle the food security issue in the sub-region.

The meeting is hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s Sub-Regional Office, East Africa (SRO-EA).

The theme of the 14th annual meeting is "Enhancing Food Security in the Eastern Africa Sub-Region.”  According to an SRO-EA report, East Africa is the sub-region most affected by food insecurity.

The report  goes on to state that the situation has been recently exacerbated in some countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda by the impact of climate change , which has resulted in recurrent droughts.

A planned outcome for the meeting will be the development of an agreed framework for a joint Programme on Food Security for East Africa.

The programme is aimed at harmonizing on-going food security initiatives in the sub-region as well as catalyzing efforts from stakeholders to implement them at all levels.
SRO-EA Director Antonio Pedro says tackling food security requires a "paradigm shift” in response methods and the development of new models for tackling food insecurity.

"The Eastern African sub-region and its member States are very well positioned to experiment, innovate and propose a new models, through learning from mistakes and success stories from other regions of the continent and the world,” he said.

"The development of regional agriculture commodities across the entire value chain offers a credible entry point to engender a structural transformation of agriculture and food security systems in the sub-region.”

The ICE meeting is also an opportunity for a review of statutory matters pertaining to the mandate and functioning of SRO-EA.

Stakeholders will assess the economic and social conditions in the sub-region and forge partnerships to spearhead regional cooperation and integration.

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