APA – Dakar (Senegal) – The African continent lacks reliable data on population resilience, according to several humanitarian organisations.
In the West African sub-region, the number of people suffering from food and nutrition insecurity continues to rise. In total, 47 million people are affected, according to Dominique Koffy Kouacou, head of the Emergencies and Resilience Team at the West Africa Subregional Office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
To reverse this trend, Mr. Kouacou says, states must work to have “reliable data” on household resilience to food and nutrition insecurity.
“Unfortunately, the sub-region still suffers from food and nutrition insecurity. That’s why it’s time to provide the authorities with reliable data so that they can make the right decisions to put an end to food insecurity,” said Dominique Koffy Kouacou.
Speaking this Monday in Dakar at the opening of a regional consultation to follow up on Commitment 6 of the Malabo Declaration, he said FAO was supporting the African Union (AU) and its member countries in collecting reliable data on population resilience to produce a report to be presented at the Conference of Heads of State and Government scheduled for February 2024.
“This report should enable African leaders to make the right decisions to ensure food and nutrition security for their populations,” said Mr. Kouacou.
FAO has played a critical role in the development and implementation of resilience analyses.
Specifically, FAO introduced the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) methodology, which has proven to be highly effective in measuring resilience in project monitoring and evaluation, as well as in needs assessments.
Since 2017, FAO has been working closely with the African Union (AU) to monitor Commitment 6 of the Malabo Declaration, which focuses on improving the resilience of livelihoods and production systems to climate variability and other related risks.
However, despite these collaborative efforts, only a small number of countries reported indicator 6.1.i based on the FAO RIMA methodology in the third biennial review in 2021. In response to this issue, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) biennial review process conducted a critical analysis in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in August 2022.
The review recommended that FAO take the lead in assessing Indicator 6.1.i of the Malabo Declaration. Specifically, it was suggested that FAO, through its RIMA experts, carry out the estimation of indicator 6.1.i, given the inability of the CAADP focal points to conduct the analysis and estimate the indicator using FAO’s RIMA methodology.
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