Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

To recapitulate, the 14th Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union decided that within a period of five years, Africa must be able to feed itself and that after that period, no child in Africa should die of hunger, starvation or malnutrition. The African Union decided to place highest priority on agriculture and food security as the basis for economic transformation and change within the shortest period of time.

In order to realize the decision of the 14th Ordinary Summit, I am proposing a new strategic partnership for the “The African Food Basket: Innovations, Interventions and Strategic Partnerships” that will initially be implemented in Africa, with potepotential to extend to other developing nations.

Excellencies, the African Food Basket is a new focused approach that highlights agriculture and food security as the springboard for growth supported by strategic transport infrastructures, energy development, Information Communication Technology (ICT) and climate change mitigation.

The proposal calls for Africa and all cooperating partners to focus on improving agriculture and food security in the next five years through innovative interventions that comprise subsidies, increased budgetary allocations, private sector investment and affordable information and communications technology. This document could also form the basis for Africa to unlock resources from the $22 billion that the G8 made available in the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative.

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