Kigali, 06^th August 2019

Prime Minister Ngirente Edouard said that Africa should start thinking of a proper management of its water resources as water availability per capita is going down due to the population growth on the continent.

He made the statement on Tuesday while speaking at a panel exchange held at the Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue that was themed “From an Accelerating Climate Crisis to a Sustainable and Prosperous Africa”.

Prime Minister pointed out that it is an urgent need for the continent to implement integrated water resource management since that will allow the continent to have sustainable water use for agriculture and other domestic supply.

“We need to reduce our dependency on rain-fed agriculture, this could be done by increasing area under irrigation but also by giving priority to investment in irrigation infrastructure and support farmers to access small scale irrigation equipment.” Said the Prime Minister.

Speaking about profitability in the agriculture sector, Prime Minister noted that the agriculture sector is being dominated by aging population, and that African Governments need to incentivize young people to be in the farming.

“We need also to de-risk the sector because we want to show our youth that agriculture sector is a profitable business that they can do.” Dr. Ngirente added.

Stunting issue

Prime Minister Ngirente urged African countries to deal with undernutrition since over 20% of the population in Africa, which means 256 million people are facing malnutrition and that 30% of the young children on the continent, are stunted.

He further revealed that all this is happening while Africa has a quarter of the world’s arable land but produces only 10% of global agricultural output.

The Premier urged participants to go with one mind that the best way to ensure food security in a changing climate is to work together and move from theories to action.

This two-days Africa Food Security Dialogue brought together, Heads of States, Ministers of agriculture and finance, heads of international institutions and Regional economic commissions (RECs), Nobel laureates, and eminent scientists to catalyze actions and financing to help address Africa’s worsening food security crisis under climate change