24 August 2023
Proforest and ASCI at #AfricaClimateWeek
Proforest is organising a side event at the Africa Climate Summit, as part of Africa Climate Week in Kenya, on September 6th.
“Learning to Build Better Food Systems through the Africa Sustainable Commodities Initiative – a regional multi-stakeholder platform in West & Central Africa”
- Date: Wednesday, September 6
- Time: 3.30pm – 4.30pm local time
- Location: Mount Nimba Room
- Online link: TBC
- Event ref: ACW-SE-T3-002
The Africa Sustainable Commodities Initiative (ASCI) is a multi-stakeholder platform creating the enabling environment for food systems transformation through commitments to the responsible production of agricultural commodities. Government, communities and companies in ten countries in West & Central Africa have worked together since the Africa Palm Oil Initiative launched, now expanded to cover all commodities.
Representatives from ASCI platforms in Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, will form a panel discussion to share learnings and best practice from many years of multi-stakeholder collaboration and building the enabling environment for food systems transformation.
They will share the biggest milestone and progress in each country, and look at the value of the multi-stakeholder approach, including private sector and communities, and looking in particular at how government leadership helped.
Sophie Higman, Director of Programmes at Proforest, who will be moderating, will also ask the panel about how the country platforms have engaged and supported smallholders, and particularly women, who are the majority of producers in many countries and many commodities.
The panel will then explore what we can we learn from ASCI about the role of commodity cash crop production in food security and how this could be applied to staple crops or food systems more widely, as well as its role in contributing to climate action and regional climate security.
#AfricaClimateWeek 2023 is the first of the Regional Climate Weeks 2023 being held from September 4 – 8 in Nairobi, Kenya. The Week will explore resilience against climate risks, transition to a low-emission economy and collaboration on climate change solutions. Working together opens opportunities to address social inequality and invest in development that is good for humanity and nature. ACW 2023 is hosted by the Government of Kenya and organized by UN Climate Change in collaboration with global partners UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank Group (WBG).
Please let us know if you are attending and have time to meet (sophie@proforest.net) or we hope to see you at the side event.
The Proforest team will also be at the Africa Food Systems Summit in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, the same week. If you are going to be there and have time to meet (ali.merifield@proforest.net).