EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY MEMBER STATES ARE IN THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING A COMMON POLICY ON FOOD SECURITY.
Writes Leo Odera Omolo
The East African Community [EAC} is developing a common policy strategy to address food security and climate change.
The strategy will be embodied in two policy documents –Food security Action Plan and Climate Change Policy- that will be presented to the heads of state at a special summit later this month in Arusha.
Already the drafts have been ratified by the East African Legislative Assembly and were reviewed at the recently held sartorial Council of Ministers for Lake Victoria Basin and the multispectral meeting on food security and climate change in Kisumu City.
The documents has now been passed to the partner states of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi for review and eventual forwarding to the EAC Secretariat for consolidation as they await ratification.
This joint approach comes as the individual countries in the region grapples with a gloomy outlook on food. A huge deficit arising successive poor yield in the past coupled with poor handling of harvest the bumper recorded last year threaten food security.
The East African region has suffered agricultural output due to among other things, erratic weather caused by climate change and ineffective national policies.
Concerted efforts by countries to seek outside assistance have been thwarted by restrictive national policies that hinder cross-border trade in food commodities. These are some of the issues that will be addressed by the new draft policies.
The policy targets the enhancement of free movement of food commodity within the region, increased productivity and formulation of tolerable policies and programmes. If ratified and implemented effectively, efforts will be focused towards eliminating non-tariff barriers, strengthening postharvest management and approving agricultural production.
The representation of the climate change policy is based on EAC Treaty, the EAC Protocol on environment and natural resources, the protocol on sustainable development of Lake Victoria Basin as well as the national framework convention on climate change among others.
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leooderaomolo@yahoo.com