Summit remarks · 16 June 2024
OPENING REMARKS 1. Due to globalisation, which has become the defining condition of humanity, consumers generally rely on international supply chains to deliver products from producers situated very far from them, often on other continents. This applies to food, just as it does every other product of any value to humankind.
Food security depends on efficient global commodity supply chains. Just as families in Europe depend on African farmers for flowers, fruit, tea and nuts, African homes similarly rely on European farmers for wheat and other grains, and European manufacturers for fertilizer amongst other products.
The threat of starvation typically follows wars because food supply chains are vulnerable to blockades and sabotage. Besides, local farmers cannot grow food in times of conflict, and both crops in the field and produce in storage are destroyed. As I said two days ago at the G7 Summit in Italy, Africa's forgotten wars have escalated the toll of famine, with children bearing its deadliest brunt.
Climate change has brought the spectre of famine to stable and peaceful countries, with 40 million people reported to be affected in Eastern Africa, and 30 million similarly threatened in the Sahel.
It is unfortunate that the tragic phenomena of wars and climate change have become mutually reinforcing disasters, whose cumulative impact has been calamitous for millions of vulnerable people in many parts of the world.
Farm inputs are essential to food security, and fertiliser in particular is very critical. When conflict disrupts the supply chains of grain and fertiliser, food security is under severe threat, both immediately and in the longer term. That is why last month, we convened an African Heads of State Summit in Nairobi to discuss this severe fertiliser emergency in our continent.
In Kenya, the cost of fertiliser has not only gone up, delivery now takes 45 days longer because shipping routes have changed. The disruption of its supply chain significantly undermines our food security program at a time when we are recovering from the devastating effect of climate change: the worst drought ever recorded.
The war in Ukraine is now war on our farms, and the casualties of this conflict extend far beyond Eastern Europe and include millions of African families. 80% of malnourished children do not have access to treatment. As long as war continues to deny children education, nutrition and medical treatment, they become direct casualties. The people of Africa teach us that the drums of war are the drums of hunger. War is a terrible means of solving misunderstandings, and the sooner we return to the table of peace-making through dialogue, the more lives we save, and the better humankind will be.
Collective action and a commitment to support peaceful resolution through negotiation and dialogue, are what we need to bring peace and protect global supply chains from any form of interruption.
This session provides us with a singular opportunity to deliberate and collaborate in developing effective solutions and gives us a chance to make progress in taking a stand against the weaponisation of trade and food security and championing the restoration and protection of the integrity and neutrality of international supply chains. CLOSING REMARKS 10. To this end, the international community must move with urgency and designate major trade and navigation routes, including the Azov Sea and Black Sea as global economic and humanitarian arteries, and vital global public goods that must remain open and free from all interference.
In the final analysis, the key to finding a lasting solution to this calamitous state of affairs is effective collective action, beginning inclusive dialogue aimed at peaceful resolution. Therefore, both parties must sit at the table and talk. For the rest of us, there is a moral imperative to provide the fullest extent of support required to deliver success. I thank you.