FOOD SECURITY FOR INDIA AND AFRICA

India and Africa share historical ties and many commonalities including a colonial past.

- AMBASSADOR MANJU SETH*

The African continent, straddling India’s neighborhood in the Indian Ocean, comprises 54 nations with a population of around 1.1 billion people and, like India, faces common threats including poverty, illiteracy, hunger, food insecurity, terrorism and the pernicious effects of climate change. In the last few years, India and Africa have broadened and intensified their engagement spanning the entire gamut of bilateral relations.

An important area of increasing cooperation between India and Africa is Food Security and was a key aspect of all three India-Africa Summits held in 2008, 2011 and 2015. In the 2011 Summit, the two sides affirmed their commitment to cooperate to improve agricultural productivity and output and achieve the millennium development goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and under nutrition by 2015. In the 2015 Summit, both sides pledged to improve farming techniques through affordable technologies, use of better crop varieties and irrigation facilities, and promote investment in agri-business and food processing industries. However, despite relatively high economic growths in India and in Africa, food security remains a challenge with a large number of people continuing to being malnourished and going hungry with both sides failing to meet the MDGs target set for 2015.