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Government of Ethiopia Leads Start-Up of New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition with G-8 and Private Sector Partners

USAID Mission Director Weller, State Minister of Agriculture Wondirad, US Chargee Molly Phee, and Deputy Mission Director Fraser

State Minister Wondirad Mandefro of the Ministry of Agriculture with US Chargee Molly Phee, USAID Mission Director Dennis Weller (L) and Deputy Mission Director Jason Fraser (R)

Nena Terrell, USAID Ethiopia

New Alliance aims to increase investments in agricultural sectors and expand private sector role to create economic opportunities for smallholder farmers and food producers

For Immediate Release

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

At the May 2012 G8 Summit chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama, industrialized countries, African leaders including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and private sector enterprises and corporations announced the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (“New Alliance”) and endorsed Cooperation Frameworks in three initial countries, Ghana, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.

To advance the New Alliance goals in Ethiopia, the Rural Economic Development and Food Security (RED&FS) Sector Working Group which is a government and donor platform chaired by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) with co-chairs from USAID and the World Bank, hosted a New Alliance Workshop for Food Security and Nutrition in Ethiopia on September 12, 2012, in Addis Ababa. The purpose of the meeting was to raise the profile and understanding of Ethiopia’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, consult with stakeholders on the way forward, and build New Alliance commitments and accountability into Ethiopia’s existing Agricultural Policy and Investment Framework (PIF).

The New Alliance aims to coordinate public and private investments with key priorities in each country’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) investment plan.In Ethiopia, the ultimate goal is to enable nearly 3 million people, smallholder farmers, many of them women, to emerge from poverty over the next ten years.

The Cooperation Framework for Ethiopia will facilitate and expand foreign direct and national private sector investments and technology transfer spanning all areas of agricultural production, processing, and marketing including seed systems, fertilizer, irrigation, crop protection, extension and training, post-harvest processing and storage, agricultural financing, and transportation infrastructure.

State Minister of Agriculture Wondirad Mandefro presided over the meeting that included an opening speech by Minister of Agriculture Tefera Derebew and participation of officials from Ethiopia’s Agriculture Transformation Agency, private sector companies from G8 member states active in Ethiopia, such as Dupont and Diageo, and Ethiopian business partners such as Guts Agro Industry, a producer of nutritional food products, and Zemen Bank, among many others. All G8 members were represented: United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, Russia, and the European Union.

State Minister of Agriculture Wondirad Mandefro remarked:

“The New Alliance will create an opportunity to speed up the transformation of agriculture by way of increasing investments and value addition to agricultural commodities where the role of the private sector within the transformation process is highly acknowledged.”

USAID’s new Mission Director for Ethiopia, Dennis Weller, participated in the event on behalf of the U.S. Government and the G8 members:

“I’m proud to be in Ethiopia today as a representative of the U.S. Government and the group of G8 countries. The G8 has united around this important initiative. In the United States we support these efforts through Feed the Future, the President’s global hunger and food security initiative. President Obama best described our shared mission:

In partnership with Africa’s people and leaders, our goals are to increase responsible domestic and foreign private investments in African agriculture, take innovations that can enhance agricultural productivity to scale, and reduce the risk borne by vulnerable economies and communities. We recognize and will act upon the critical role played by smallholder farmers, especially women, in transforming agriculture and building thriving economies.”