Strengthening Resilience in Food Systems Transformation in Sierra Leone: PI-CREF and Partners Conclude Two-Day Workshop...

*Freetown, September 13, 2024*:The Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security (PI-CREF) and partners on Friday, 13th September, 2024 ended a two-day National Stakeholders’ Workshop on Strengthening Resilience in Food Systems.

Held at the Bintumani International Hotel, the workshop brought together diverse stakeholders from the agricultural food systems and the nutrition sectors.

Supported by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (GLOPAN), the workshop sought to collect evidence and consensus for a new vision for food system resilience in Sierra Leone.

In his welcome address, Chairman Yumkella thanked all the participants for being part of this engagement, and thanked His Excellency the Vice President, Dr. Mohammed Juldeh Jalloh and the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Henry Musa Kpaka for being part of the workshop and setting the stage for discussions. He noted that, the presence of the Vice President and senior government officials underscores the importance President Julius Maada Bio places on building resilience in food systems across the country.

“We need to take actions from many angles to be able to build climate resilience into our food systems,” said Hon. Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security. He particularly noted that, he is very confident in the collaboration PI-CREF has enjoyed with the Ministry of Agriculture and they will continue to lay the foundation for “robust action across food systems to ensure that no one is left behind.”

“It takes systematic sustained intervention to build effective resilience food systems,” emphasized Chairman Yumkella as he expressed confidence in the vision of His Excellency President Bio and Vice President Juldeh Jalloh that Sierra Leone is on the right track in building collaborations across Ministries and with partners across the world, locally and regionally.

For his part, Dr. Patrick Kormawa, Director, Climate-Smart Agriculture at PI-CREF stated that the workshop is important for collecting evidence and consensus on the tenants of a vision for food system resilience in Sierra Leone. The objectives he said include: review the state of resilience of food systems, identify and priorities threats to food systems transformation, propose policies and programmatic interventions and prioritise interventions and investment needs.

In expressing gratitude to PI-CREF for putting the workshop together, Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Henry Musa Kpaka stressed that “all these efforts are part of His Excellency’s vision in achieving the Feed Salone dream.” Moreover, Kpaka underscored the need for Sierra Leone to use agriculture not only to transform the country’s food systems, but the country as a whole.

This workshop is of great importance and timely to the government, said Dr. Mohammed Juldeh Jalloh, Sierra Leone’s Vice President. “There is the critical need to transform food systems in Sierra Leone because our country relies on massive food importation and that dependence is affecting the cost of living and food insecurity,” he said in his keynote address.

VP Jalloh also emphasized that transforming food systems is a priority under the government of President Bio. He mentioned that the government of President Bio increased budget allocation to the Ministry of Agriculture from 2% to 7%, and the President created the PI-CREF Secretariat to leverage additional support among others. He also noted that the government is reducing the country’s stress on food importation over the last two years. “We have scaled up local production of onion thereby reducing importation of onion to the country and rice by 33%,” he noted.

The Irish Ambassador, representatives from UNICEF, FAO, WFP, World Bank, and NaCSA all commended PI-CREF and GLOPAN for organizing the all important workshop and the government for making Feed Salone a priority.