On August 5, 2019, five key partners in the agriculture sector signed a communiqué that will formalize a commitment to better coordinate and facilitate joint actions to achieve food security and nutrition on the African continent.
The communiqué, signed during the Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue Dinner that is taking place in Kigali from the 5th to 6th August 2019, is intended to formalize the commitments of the World Bank, FAO, AfDB, and the IFAD coordinated through a partnership of the Africa Union (AU) to a new way of working jointly to address food and nutrition security and achieve impacts that are much larger than what the individual organizations could offer working separately.
“We, as development partners and organizations supporting and implementing major food security programs in Africa, have assembled here on 5th of August 2019 for an Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue (AFSLD) to jointly commit to a new way of working together to support countries that wish to address the urgent food security situation,” reads part of the communique.

The communiqué goes on saying: “We recognize that while previous efforts of working together have generated results, we can achieve impacts at scale if we galvanize collective efforts towards critical interventions. We recognize the need to coordinate better at the country and regional levels, and to scale-up the strong forms of coordination that have worked quite well, for example co-financing and parallel-financing of agricultural investment projects and co-creation of knowledge through research.”

This strengthened collaborative partnership will be the core nucleus in support of the wider partnership with the AU, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), AU Member States, and the regional and international organizations that collaborate with the development partners across Africa.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, President Kagame emphasized the significance of the communiqué noting that “we see the five key organisations coming together with a common agenda for African agriculture. Working together with that clarity, we are going to get a lot more done.”
In practical terms, it means that the commitments and priorities of the multilateral institutions are fully aligned with the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), and Agenda 2063.