The Federal Government has been urged by the International Food Policy Research Institute IFPRI to implement early-warning agricultural systems, In order to prevent sudden food crises across the nation.
IFPRI is a global organization that offers evidence-based policy solutions to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in poor nations and reduce poverty.
The institution said that early-warning, early-action systems would provide indications of future food crises in its most recent Global Food Policy Report 2023, which our correspondent in Abuja got after it was unveiled.
According to the report, such crises are recognized as abrupt and significant increases in acute food insecurity. It also stated that the early-warning systems would inform governments and international development organizations about the necessity of humanitarian action.
“To increase the effectiveness of early warning systems, expanding the country’s coverage and frequency of consensus-based acute food insecurity analysis is essential.
“Revise the protocol for declaration of a famine to ensure it is operational in conflict-affected locations, and better integrate the various types of early warning systems for food crises through much stronger collaborative efforts across responsible international organizations,” it stated.
According to the report, Nigeria and other countries should improve their monitoring of risk factors and structural causes of crises to support the development of real-time early warning systems that could foresee and possibly contribute to the prevention of food crises through prompt and well-targeted responses.
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The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, as well as representatives from the United States Agency for International Development, attended an event in Abuja where the IFPRI presented the 2023 Global Food Policy Report.
“A critical approach to food crisis response and challenge in Africa would not only focus on humanitarian assistance, which is usually short-term and expensive, but that would require repurposing the current public support towards food and agricultural development,” the Deputy Division Director, Africa Regional Office, IFPRI, Samuel Benin, stated.
Source: punchng.com