Africa responds to the UNFSS – #FoodSystemsForPeople | 27 July 2021

Let’s reclaim our food sovereignty and transform the industrial food system! African organisations, including the African Centre for Biodiversity, participating in the Autonomous people's response to the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), coordinated this event, as part of the three days of global mobilisation, which took place during the UNFSS pre-summit, from 25 to 28 July 2021.

We Africans reject the UNFSS, as a continuation of the neocolonial development and agrarian extractivist agenda on our continent. The UNFSS paints African food systems as deficient, and in need of more Western saviour technology, productivity and competitive enhancement. Yet this will only serve to further weaken systems already eroded by decades of state neglect and economic subordination.

Strengthening African food systems, and food producers needs to be grounded in human rights, biodiversity and broader socio-ecological wellbeing. This event brings together small-scale food producers, agricultural workers and vulnerable consumers, to launch the African common position and collectively voice our priorities and solutions for the continent’s food systems and ecologies. Together, we can begin to outline a people’s pan-African vision for food system transformation, from the ground up.

Featured:
Moderators: Mariam Mayet, African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and
Mateus Santos, La Via Campesina (LVC)

Presentation of the common position:
Introduction to the vision: Mateus Santos
The vision we defend: Mariam Mayet
What we denounce: Elizabeth Mpofu, Zimbabwe Small Holder Organic Farmers' Forum (ZIMSOFF)/ LVC
What we call for (FR): Dieudonné Pakodtogo, Réseau des Organisations Paysannes et de Producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA)

Voices from the Ground:
Youth and women: Nzira Deus, World March of Women
Fisherfolk: Christiana Saiti Louwa, World Forum of Fisher Peoples
Small-scale family farmers / Peasants: David Otieno, Kenyan Peasant League
Urban food insecure: Samuel Ikua, Habitat International Coalition (HIC)
Indigenous people: Ali Aii Shatu, Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee
Agricultural workers (FR): Mohamed Hakech, Fédération Nationale Du Secteur Agricole (FNSA/MAROC)

Closing performance: “Tell the children”, a poem by South African Poet Khadija Tracey Heeger

You can read the declaration (and please sign your organisations on to endorse it) here: https://docs.google.com/docume....nt/d/e/2PACX-1vTVDdM

To find out more about this event, click here: https://www.acbio.org.za/africa-responds-unfss
Follow the social media conversation: #FoodSystems4People
For more information on the counter mobilisation, please click here: https://www.foodsystems4people.org/