African govts vow to slash spend on food imports

By Francis Emorut in Kigali

AFRICAN countries have vowed to slash down amount of money spent through food imports by strengthening grain trade in the continent.

This was declared by over 200 delegates from over 20 countries who attended the 6th African Grain Trade Summit held at the Rwandese capital Kigali.

According to Michael Hailu, the director of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), Africa spends US $40 billion on food imports.

"Why can't Africa, also export that much?" Hailu asked.

The summit which drew delegates from  African countries and Europe including; Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, The Netherlands, Singapore, USA and Philippines recommended that structured grain trade in the continent is key in reducing high costs of food imports.

The delegates, who represented the government officials, private sector, traders, farmers, processors, financial institutions, civil society and development partners all committed to work together through Private-Public Partnership (PPP) models to reduce the billions of dollars that get out of Africa through food imports

The 6th African Grain Trade Summit held under the theme: " Towards Creating an Enabling Environment for Grain Trade in Africa: Technology, Investment, Information and Services," closed with a clear agenda for regional grain trade in Africa, and with renewed commitments for creating an enabling environment for structured trade.

The outcomes of the three-day summit reaffirmed the regional grain sector actors' commitment to structured grain trade in Africa and sets out a clear agenda on different priority areas to be achieved within the next two years, when the next summit will be held.

"The 6th African Grain Trade summit that we hosted here in Kigali provided an opportunity to review our commitment to address the structural constraints of the grain trade on the African continent" Francois Kanimba, Minister of Trade and Industry said in his closing remarks.

He assured delegates that the Government of Rwanda will continue supporting the operationalization of the single customs territory through the Northern and Central Corridor Initiatives.

He urged delegates to create synergies and work together to create effective partnerships between the public and private sector to modernize the grain trading commodity value chain and to boost the intra-African grain trade.

Dr. Bernard Otim, the chairperson of the Eastern African Grain Council (EAGC), acknowledged the various challenges and bottlenecks in the regional trade within the East African Community (EAC) but was confident that they would be overcomed after strengthening the grain trade in the region. He urged the partner states to implement the resolutions of the summit.

He hailed Rwanda's President Paul Kagame for providing conducive environment that has made the economy of his country to grow and is among the fastest growing economy in Africa. 

The summit concluded with recommendations from the delegates who fronted for a Private sector-led Action Group that would champion the identification of key issues and to drive policy engagement with governments to ensure the grain sector thrives.

They called for regional harmonization of trade policies among countries and among regional economic blocs.

The Eastern Africa Grain Council was tasked to drive the regional trade harmonization agenda, including policies on Warehouse Receipting Systems, Post-harvest Management, storage systems and technologies that support regional trade.

The summit also brought together, for the very first time, the Eastern Africa Grain Council, the Southern Africa Grain Network and the West Africa Grain network, where it was agreed on the need of collaboration on Marketing Information and Capacity Building.

The delegates further agreed to the formation of the African Grain Council (AGC).

In addition, business to business linkages were made between the private sector, including traders, farmers and processors from the EAC, where trade contracts were sealed worth 10,290 metric tons of beans, 10,000 metric tons of maize, 10,000 metric tons of rice and 47,000 Zero Fly bags.

This is part of the trade facilitation initiatives EAGC provides to its members through regional network. Gerald Masila, the executive director of EAGC noted that the summit was a success.

"Clear commitments to create and enabling environments were agreed upon, trade contracts were signed worth millions of dollars, knowledge and lessons were shared among participants, and collaboration throughout the continent was achieved through the discussions with the East, West and Southern Africa region," Masila said.

The 6th African Grain Trade Summit is a biennial, high-level, multi-stakeholder event organized by the Eastern Africa Grain Council with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), through its project the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, Food Trade Eastern and Southern Africa, Government of Sweden through Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA).