Calls for urgent action for AU member states to act on exacerbated food prices following Ukraine war

His Excellency Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Your Excellency E. D. Mnangagwa

Harare - 15 April 2022: ActionAid International salutes the African Union (AU’s) swift response statement on 28th February 2022 to the reported blocks on African Citizens trying to cross the Ukraine border. This unacceptable treatment is shockingly racist and in breach of international law. ActionAid also applauds the AU 2022 theme “Strengthening resilience in nutrition and food security on the Africa continent”.

The theme is significant in addressing malnutrition and improving food security across the continent. While recognizing the importance of the theme, as leaders of ActionAid programmes over 19 countries across Africa, we are gravely concerned by the increases in food prices that had already reached record highs when the Ukraine conflict began and that are getting worse as each day passes. The war in Ukraine seriously disrupted the food supply chain. African countries are major trading partners with Russia and Ukraine for supplies of wheat, edible oil, and fertilizer. Half of the grains distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) through its food support programmes come from Ukraine and Russia.

The rising price of food has disproportional impacts on people living in poverty, particularly women and children. The negative effects of the rising food crisis are exacerbated in humanitarian crisis, such as the worsening climate-induced drought in the Horn of Africa where over 14 million people are facing severe hunger and water shortages. Cyclones in Southern Africa Countries affected 2.7 million people. There are also millions of refugees and internally displaced people in the Horn and West Africa because of political crisis and conflicts. In the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis, other humanitarian crisis including the humanitarian crisis in Africa are not receiving enough economic, political, and public support.

In addition to the above there are now 100 million low-income urban dwellers who are hard hit by the rising food prices, many of them women headed households. People in the continent are already grappling to cope with the economic fall out of the COVID-19 pandemic and this is placing women and girls at increased risk of gender-based violence and exploitation which always happens during emergencies.

1. ActionAid calls on your excellency to address the ever-increasing food prices:

• The government must take policy measures to subsidize food accessibility to low-income people in particular women and children.

• The government must increase social protection safety nets and other measures to improve the income of people in urban and rural areas to cope with the increasing food prices • The government must invest in building national food reserves to act as buffers and reduce vulnerability to food shortages and price rises.

• The government should scale-up support to smallholder farmers, especially women smallholders and sustainable agroecological approaches to farming, so farmers can improve soil fertility for crop production, without the use of expensive fossil-fuel chemical fertilizers.

• The government in the medium term needs to accelerate climate justice as a continental and international priority - ass climate change is expected to drive 122 million more people into poverty by 2030.

2. While addressing the immediate needs with urgency the above policies can only happen if African countries act collectively and united to get the necessary fiscal space to fund them. Thus, we appeal to the government to collectively resist any pressures to impose austerity policies and cuts to public spending – which all too often are recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in response to rising prices. In the face of the current conflict, the climate crisis and COVID-19 African countries need to invest more, not less, in gender responsive public services. Instead of austerity, governments ought to invest in ambitious and progressive tax reforms that pass the burden on those richest individuals and companies who are most able to pay.

3. ActionAid urges the government to engage and remind the European Union (EU), the United States for International Development (USAID), and all other donors and the wider public, of the importance of adequately supporting the humanitarian crises in our continent

4. ActionAid calls for a greater action by the government to monitor the ill treatments of Africans in Ukraine and neighbouring countries and engage with the EU in ensuring the respect and fulfilment of peoples’ human rights including from racial discrimination and abuse.

5. ActionAid calls on citizens across Africa and their institutions to ensure consumer rights through monitoring food, fuel, and related prices and through acting against selfish traders who take advantage of the disruptions in food supply chains.

ActionAid is a global federation that works closely with citizens, civil society organizations and social movements to empower people living in poverty and exclusion to fight for women’s rights, social justice, and an end to poverty. At ActionAid, we help people use their own power to bring about real change for women, communities, and societies. ActionAid is present in 46 countries, 19 of which are in Africa, Zimbabwe included reaching thousands of communities.

Signed: Executive Directors and Country Directors of ActionAid programmes in Africa:

ActionAid Burundi

ActionAid DRC

ActionAid Ethiopia

ActionAid Ghana

ActionAid Kenya

ActionAid Liberia

ActionAid Malawi

ActionAid Mozambique

ActionAid Nigeria

ActionAid Rwanda

ActionAid Senegal

ActionAid Sierra Leone

ActionAid Somaliland

ActionAid South Africa

ActionAid Tanzania

ActionAid The Gambia

ActionAid Uganda

ActionAid Zambia

ActionAid Zimbabwe

For more details in Zimbabwe please contact: ActionAid Zimbabwe Country Director, Joy Mabenge: Email joy.mabenge@actionaid.org or Mobile +263 772904479 Twitter: https://twitter.com/ActionAidZim | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ActionAidZimbabwe/ | Website: https://zimbabwe.actionaid.org

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