Dialogue on building long-term drought resilience: Toward a more food secure Horn of Africa

Excellencies,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am pleased to welcome you to today’s event where we start a dialogue between technical experts, development partners, Government of China officials, and representatives of Horn of Africa countries to identify transformative partnerships to address the severe drought situation that is impacting the Horn of Africa (HoA).

These countries continue to suffer from a drought that has already lasted two years and that has led to the worst famine of the twenty-first century, in which almost 21 million people have been highly food insecure and over 23 million face daily household water scarcity.

As our climate continues to shift and extreme weather events become ever more common, it is imperative that we move beyond viewing these situations as solely in need of a humanitarian response, and move towards a more proactive, long-term approach to increase preparedness and build resilience, allowing these countries to develop strategies to be better prepared to mitigate the impact of future droughts and development strategies to increase resilience.

This dialogue forms part of the China – Horn of Africa – United Nations Transformative Partnership Initiative (TPI).

The TPI intends to build partnerships between China, HoA Countries and the UN in both China and HoA countries with the objective of supporting international development and South-South cooperation activities between China and HoA countries.

I was just in New York last month for a joint event hosted by the Chinese Permanent Mission, CIDCA and the UN in China to promote GDI and to share with the international community how the UN in China is working to ensure GDI can support the achievement of the SDGs in many developing countries, including in the HoA.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This event comes at a critical moment, as progress on the SDGs has stalled, and we must take critical, ambitious steps if we hope to put ourselves on track to achieve the SDGs. China’s increasingly important role in South-South cooperation presents enormous opportunities for technology transfers and assistance, and the creation of meaningful partnerships to address the development challenges in these countries.

Today, we are bringing together Ambassadors and other representatives of HoA countries, the Government of China, UN entities both in China and in Africa, technical experts from research institutions, foundations and the private sector to discuss opportunities to address the severe drought and corresponding food security challenges by building drought resilience through the creation of new partnerships.

My hope is that by bringing together this diverse group of stakeholders at today’s event, we can take the first step towards building these partnerships and developing concrete programmes, projects and partnerships that address the needs of these countries. We, as the UN in China, will work to ensure that the outcomes from today’s discussion will be taken forward and will support in whatever manner we can the development of these partnerships.

In fact, the outcomes of today’s dialogue will be brought to an upcoming event co-organized by the China-Africa Development Fund (CADF) and the UN in China, hosted by the Embassy of Ethiopia in Beijing, and planned for early June. This upcoming event plans to highlight the different areas in which CADF can support development activities, and it will have a specific section focused on agricultural cooperation.

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I look forward to listening to the discussions that will take place during this afternoon’s event and hope that we will be able to identify concrete outcomes and proposals, build connections and develop partnerships to increase drought resilience in HoA Countries. Let this event and the partnerships that arise out of it be the first step in making the TPI a vehicle for building transformative partnerships that produce locally driven, innovative, scalable solutions, in not only drought resilience, but also for the other pressing needs the region faces.

Thank you.