One of the outcomes of the last month’s G8 meeting was the launch of a New Alliance for “improving food and nutrition security” in Africa. Aimed at boosting productivity, domestic and international private sector investments and supporting innovation and technology in agriculture. Food security and agriculture have been identified as priority sectors for EU aid in the EU new development policy “Agenda for Change”, and therefore by supporting it the EU hopes to act on hunger and poverty, food security, nutrition and agricultural development.
According to the European Commission’s estimates, the European Union has played a leading role in tackling hunger and malnutrition for many years – “The EU is the world’s largest grant donor to food security“.
The EU has supported it as part of its action to tackle hunger and poverty, food security, nutrition and agricultural development. The “New Alliance” gathers together donors, partner countries and the private sector in “a joint effort to lift 50 million people out of poverty in the next ten years“.
The Alliance will promote investments in private sector in agriculture by improving the business environment and exploring ways to reduce risk through providing better legal and administrative conditions for investors.
The EU intends supporting actions in the area of risk management and agricultural research, such as “improved soil and pest management, better seed varieties and nutrition“.
Food security and agriculture have been identified as priority sectors for EU aid in the EU new development policy “Agenda for Change“, which also recognises the key role of the private sector.
Agriculture, food security and nutrition are high on the EU’s long-term development cooperation agenda and are an important aspect of the dialogue with partner governments. They are expected to feature prominently in the next programming phase which will cover EU development assistance during 2014-2020.
