OAU SUMMIT
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 26 - 28 June 1995
Mr Chairman,
Your Excellencies,
Mr Secretary-General of the OAU,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great privilege for me to be
able to address you today. I interpret the honour that
has been extended to me as a reaffirmation of your
confidence and support. In thanking you for this
opportunity, I wish to reiterate the assurance I gave to
the OAU Council of Ministers last year that my efforts to
lead FAO will be worthy of your confidence.
May I also take this opportunity to
thank the Secretary- General, Mr Salim Ahmed Salim, for
the fruitful cooperation in favour of the African
continent between the OAU and FAO. I should also like to
thank the Government and people of Ethiopia for their
warm and fraternal welcome.
Mr Chairman, Your Excellencies,
The honour that you have bestowed on
me today also entails certain responsibilities. First,
the obligation to faithfully report FAO's rather sombre
analysis of the current state of food and agriculture in
Africa; then, the need to echo the call of the OAU
Council of Ministers, at its Seventeenth Extraordinary
Session in Cairo last March, for every possible effort to
be made to release Africa from this situation, and
finally, the responsibility of briefing you on some of
the measures that FAO has taken, or is about to take, to
help the African continent in its struggle for
agricultural and economic development.
When I addressed your Council last
year in Tunis, I deplored the fact that Africa is the
only region in the world where per capita food production
has fallen during the course of the last 20 to 25 years.
Africa, a net food exporter in the early 1960s, has
experienced a gradual decline to the point where it has
now become a net importer. The cereal deficit alone could
amount to 50 million tons by the year 2010. Another
sobering fact is that the total cost of food imports will
increase significantly, not only because of the greater
needs of a growing population, but also because of the
expected rise in the price of food imports from the
temperate zone, resulting in particular from the expected
reduction in export subsidies for wheat and animal
products. FAO has recently estimated that by the year
2000, the total cost of Africa's food imports will have
increased by 4.5 billion dollars compared to 1987-89,
which unfortunately will not be offset by higher export
earnings.
More immediately, the 1995 food
situation is once again precarious in southern Africa, a
sub-region that has traditionally been an exporter of
cereals, as a result of the drought that has persisted in
most countries of the sub-region. Parts of Ethiopia and
Uganda have also been affected by drought, and relief
operations have had to be continued or resumed.
Rainfall has, on the whole, been
adequate elsewhere in Africa and the food supply
situation is satisfactory. Unhappily, however, there are
also countries where civil unrest and its aftermath have
severely compromised food production and supplies.
The Organization estimates that Africa
will have to import 31.4 million tons of cereals in
1994/95, including some 12 million tons for countries
south of the Sahara.
Mr Chairman, all of us here know that
technical, economic and policy considerations and
constraints underlie the current state of food and
agriculture in Africa. Permit me, however, to highlight
some of these as my contribution to your continuing
reflections on the challenges of agricultural development
that lie before Africa and her partners.
While most African countries are
bravely pursuing painful efforts to revive economic
growth, and with agriculture beginning to take its
rightful place in development programmes and policies,
water control remains a key factor in the successful and
sustainable increase of food and agricultural production.
Yet, this is a sector in which I am unable to report much
recent progress. In Africa, only 7 percent of arable land
is under irrigation, totalling some 11 million hectares,
and 75 percent of this is concentrated in five countries.
Africa in fact still only uses 4 percent of its 4 000
billion cubic metres of water resources. So I must once
again repeat, as I have said before, that the solution to
the food problem on this continent necessarily implies
the acceleration and improvement of its irrigation
programmes and schemes.
Africa also has a sizeable forest
resource base covering 18 percent of its land, which
needs to be safeguarded. National strategies are required
for the rational management of this capital, as well as
for the identification of alternative sources of energy
to charcoal, thereby halting the annual deforestation of
4 million hectares, caused mainly by population pressure
and extensive farming.
Livestock production is another
important sector in many Africancountries, sometimes
accounting for up to 25 percent of agricultural output,
and is a means of improving nutritional status. However,
there are still enormous constraints on livestock
development, particularly with regard to animal feed and
health and the processing and marketing of livestock
products and by-products.
As for marine fishery resources,
Africa's once considerable fishery potential has been
largely depleted as a result of overfishing, for the most
part by foreign fleets. Appropriate strategies and
policies should enable the African countries to develop
their own fishery capacity, individually and
collectively, with the participation of private investors
working in mutually advantageous partnership. Freshwater
and coastal aquaculture should also receive greater
attention for these already represent 15 percent of world
supply, and are expected to account for 30 percent by
2010.
Mr Chairman, Your Excellencies,
I should like now, if I may, to turn
to some of FAO's current and planned contributions to
African agriculture and food security.
In 1994, the first year of my
stewardship as Director-General of FAO, some 46 percent
of the Organization's field projects concerned Africa.
Most of these provided direct support to African men and
women working as farmers, fishers, herders and foresters.
In order to help them raise their productivity as well as
to assist the governments supporting them, FAO also
continued to work with the Ministries of Agriculture and
Rural Development, their associated institutions, and the
occupational associations.
At the inter-country level, FAO has
continued to cooperate with the OAU in the development of
a Common African Agricultural Programme as an instrument
of consolidation of the African Economic Community. This
cooperation was further evident in the Organization's
contribution towards the strengthening of the
sub-regional economic communities, notably in the
development of appropriate agricultural cooperation and
integration programmes as well as the preparation of
sub-regional food security strategies. Other activities
and programmes are also carried out in cooperation with
the OAU's Specialized Agencies, particularly in the areas
of animal health and crop protection.
I warmly welcome the convergence of
OAU and FAO concerns and priorities as reflected in the
Cairo Agenda for Action, which was adopted in March by
the Council of Ministers. This bodes well for the
continuation and strengthening of OAU/FAO cooperation.
Mr Chairman, it is now my pleasure to
report that my proposed changes in FAO's programmes,
structures and policies, which I was privileged to convey
to the OAU Council of Ministers in Tunis last year, one
week after their approval by the FAO Council, are now
well underway. These changes include FAO's new Special
Programme on Food Production in Support of Food Security
in Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries, designed to help
countries which lack the means to import their food
requirements, to realize their production potential to
the full and thus meet these needs. There are 44 African
countries inthis category. The programme is now
operational in a preliminary group of 15 countries,
including 10 in Africa.
The second programme recently
implemented by FAO is the Emergency Prevention System for
Transboundary Animal and Plant Pests and Diseases. This
programme will initially concentrate on the desert locust
and rinderpest which are both particularly virulent in
Africa.
I have also launched a number of
partnership programmes with a view to increasing the
effectiveness and impact of FAO's activities. The
Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries
Agreement, for instance, has so far been signed by 58
countries, 27 of them in Africa. I also plan to implement
a scheme to promote the use of the services of young
professionals from developing countries to serve in FAO
field projects and thus acquire experience which would be
useful when they return to their home countries.
Lastly, we have laid the foundations
for reinforced cooperation with multilateral and
bilateral funding agencies, as well as with the private
sector and non-governmental organizations in order to
mobilize additional resources for the agricultural sector
- and food security -in Africa and elsewhere in the
developing world.
I should also like to brief this
august assembly on the progress made on the
decentralization of the Organization.
As promised last year, a substantive
multidisciplinary team of some 15 professional officers,
together constituting a policy assistance group, is
preparing to transfer from Headquarters to the Regional
Office in Accra. Another ten technical officers in
various disciplines are also scheduled to join the
Regional Office soon. The Sub-Regional Office for
Southern and Eastern Africa based in Harare will soon be
fully operational. I wish to thank the governments of
Ghana and Zimbabwe for making the necessary arrangements
to receive these experts. Arrangements will also be made
to set up the Sub-Regional Office for North Africa, which
has been delayed because of lack of consensus on its
location.
These increases and improvements in
the Organization's presence in Africa and in other parts
of the world have taken place despite budget
restrictions, thanks to the FAO Council's decision to
redeploy staff from both Headquarters and the joint
divisions operating with the UN regional economic
commissions. Other mechanisms have been introduced to
continue cooperation programmes with these UN bodies. I
am also happy to report that the FAO Representation in
Addis Ababa will be reinforced so as to facilitate our
cooperation with the OAU and with the Economic Commission
for Africa.
Mr Chairman, as you know, I have
submitted a proposal for a World Food Summit to draw
world attention to the fact that 800 million human beings
do not have adequate access to food and that 192 million
children under the age of five suffer from protein-energy
deficiency. Last year, your Council recommended that your
Summit support this initiative, which it kindly agreed to
do. I am pleased to announce that my proposal has been
approved by the FAO Council and has met with widespread
support throughout the world. Following consultation with
the Italian Government, FAO's host country, the World
Food Summit will take place in Rome on 16 and 17 November
1996. It will be preceded bya ministerial meeting from 13
to 15 November and a preparatory meeting on 11 and 12
November. Regional conferences will review specific food
security aspects of the respective continents. The FAO
Regional Conference for Africa will be held from 16 to 20
April 1996. I wish to thank the OAU once again for its
support to this initiative.
In conclusion, Mr Chairman, allow me
to respond directly to the appeal launched to Africa's
development partners by the Cairo Agenda for Action. I
can assure you that the organizations of the United
Nations system and FAO, in particular, understand and
appreciate Africa's development challenge and support the
continent's efforts to this end. What FAO can do, is
doing and intends to do to support the region in these
efforts is clear evidence of the Organization's
commitment to and solidarity with the African people and
their leaders. However, we could and should do more with
more resources and, of course, with your support.
I thank you for your unfailing
confidence and count on your invaluable support as we
continue our common struggle for agricultural development
and food security in our continent.
Thank you for your kind attention.
