Organiser's description (via SDSN)
Agrarian Change and Rural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa - 2022
Who is benefitting as food systems and rural economies are transformed and who is at risk of being left-behind? Throughout 2022, the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) Programme of the Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC), UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Foresight4Food (F4F) will be convening a series of e-Dialogues to provide an in-depth exploration of these critical questions.
Drawing on a wide range of perspectives, disciplines and approaches, we will examine pathways for bringing greater equity and inclusivity to how food is produced and consumed. Foresight thinking will be used to explore the impact of differing scenarios of food systems transformation in a variety of contexts worldwide. To look at equity and inclusion issues across the whole food system, we will be building on the content and format of the successful 2020 e-Dialogue series on “What Future for Small-Scale Farming?”.
Context
To kick-off the New Year, three e-Dialogues led by APRA will be held in January and February 2022. The aim will be to not only draw ideas and insights from APRA research, but also from other complementary initiatives across Sub-Saharan Africa. These events will feature new evidence and analyses to highlight the critical political, economic, social, institutional and technical factors that enable or constrain small and medium producers, farm workers and processors to invest in agriculture. They will show how and why agriculture is an important source of food and income for most rural households but needs to be seen in the context of multiple livelihood activities - both on and off the farm - as a large proportion of small and medium producers in Africa live in poverty and fail to achieve a ‘living income’ from farming alone.
The first e-Dialogue will be:
1. Emerging Challenges and Regional Realities (Thursday, 20 January 2022). This first e-dialogue will involve analyzing the dynamics of agricultural commercialization and agrarian change across East, West and Southern Africa in three parallel regional discussions leading to a continental-level panel involving expert commentators and audience questions.
Read more and register here.
