Prime Minister Dr. Edouard Ngirente on Wednesday told delegates at a global event that the world still has a long way to go towards achieving food security and nutrition in a bid to cut the number of hungry people. He was rallying global policymakers to make considerable steps towards resolving food security issues, as in the case of Rwanda, in his keynote address at the global meeting dubbed: “Accelerating the End of Hunger and Malnutrition,” in Bangkok, Thailand. The platform seeks to address the burden of hunger and malnutrition and the impact on human capital and economic development. “Tremendous progress has been noted in many parts of the world but we still have a long way to go. The 2018 report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World reveals that the number of hungry people in the world increased to 821 million in the year 2017,” he said. In Africa, the same report indicates that undernourishment affects more than 256 million people, equivalent to 21 percent of the population.” The findings, he said, are not different from the 2017 FAO report that shows that about 27.4 per cent of Africans were considered severely food insecure, which is considerably higher compared to other regions of the world. To completely eliminate hunger and food insecurity, in the African Union agenda 2063, the continent made nutrition a top priority. Ngirente said this will be achieved by consolidating the modernization of agriculture through scaled production and value addition and production. Rwandan context In a bid to inspire action, Ngirente then shared the Rwandan context, where he admitted that the country still faces issues of hunger and malnutrition but has “made considerable steps towards resolving them. “Rwanda aspires to attain middle-income status by 2035 and human capital development is crucial to attaining this vision. Having a healthy and productive population requires putting appropriate policies that fight hunger and malnutrition at the centre stage,” he said. And he shared some of the initiatives put in place, which are developed through learning from best practices around the world as well as home-grown solutions tailored from the Rwandan context. He said: “The Government of Rwanda is implementing the Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation, which is nutrition-sensitive. It implements programs that aim at increasing the level of protein production and an increase of micronutrient production. “The Crop Intensification Program aims to improve agricultural production, especially food crops. Through this program, we have noted a growing trend in food crop production at eight per cent annual average in 2017, accounting for 20 per cent share of total agriculture sector contribution to GDP.” The Prime Minister as well noted that land consolidation and soil erosion control greatly influenced the status of food security in Rwanda. More than one million hectares of land have been consolidated and agriculture inputs subsidized to increase affordability and uptake. “Investments in soil erosion control infrastructure have created employment opportunities for vulnerable households. Today, over 900,000 hectares of progressive terraces and more than 100,000 hectares of radical terraces were developed.” Irrigation has played a vital role as, presently more than 50,000 hectares of land used by small-scale farmers is irrigated as a support mechanism to reduce the vulnerability to changing rainfall patterns. “The above efforts have yielded improvements in food security in Rwanda.” However, he said, “we still have unacceptable high levels of malnutrition currently at 35 percent of stunting rates among children.” “This situation has attracted high-level attention to put in place and implement policies and strategies that will holistically tackle the issue of malnutrition.” Some of these strategies, he said, include an Early Childhood Development (ECD) program championed by an institution dedicated to coordinating all activities aimed at eliminating hunger and malnutrition. Among others, more than 300,000 cows have been distributed to poor families under the Girinka programme. The target is to ensure every poor household owns a cow to produce milk for home consumption, generate family revenues for extra milk sold and produce manure that supports food production for the family.
