With the G20 meeting this week in Seoul and the Department for International Development carrying out a review of bilateral aid, I will be pressing the minister to put tackling hunger and malnutrition for millions of Africans at the heart of his government’s fight against global poverty. I will be reminding him that the primary aim of our overseas development assistance must be to tackle the basic needs of the poorest people in the poorest countries; helping them to help themselves. And I will put to him that a strategy that invests more in smallholder farmers, the vast majority of whom are women, could yield results that far outweigh other approaches to international development.
I am not an expert in food security, nor am I am expert on Africa. I did however grow up the 1980s and the images of starving children in Ethiopia made a deep and lasting impression on me. I have called the debate in Westminster Hall because I never want to see those images again, because I believe Africa has the ability to feed itself and because I believe that we in the UK should be doing more to help African agriculture realise its potential.
A visit to Kenya in September with the all-party group on agriculture and development served to crystallise my belief that the UK needs to lead the way in developing new and innovative approaches to tackling food security. Improving the productivity of African agriculture seems like a sensible first step on that road. It’s not rocket science but it does need commitment on behalf of international donors and recognition that investing in agriculture can have a direct impact on other development goals in education and health.
On current trends, half of Africa’s population will be living with chronic hunger by 2020. Climate change and more irregular and unpredictable rains could make the situation even worse. We mustn’t let this happen and I will be doing all that I can to ensure that the UK plays its part in tackling one of the huge challenges of our time.