What is the role of competition and consumer protection laws in rising food prices and poverty eradication? This was the topic of the panel discussion that included the participation of the Shamba Centre’s Chilufya Sampa during COMESA Competition Commission's #CCC4thDiplomaticConference. According to Chilufya, competition laws are not a priority for the government when faced with high food prices. “Most governments tend to ignore competition laws and develop policies aimed at resolving the crisis. Unfortunately, the policies are primarily influenced by big business at the expense of SMEs. Big businesses have more resources and will promote policies that favour them. Few people benefit from these policies, with smaller businesses losing out." African food systems are dominated by oligopolies along the supply chain – whether inputs, distribution, or retail. And wherever oligopolies exist, a few players will disproportionately benefit. The issue of high food prices is therefore a trade and competition issue. ❓ Why a competition issue? Chilufya gave the example of fertilizers. “It is well-established that the price of fertilizer in Africa is much higher compared with the world price. This can also be attributed to the fact that the procurement process is not competitive. It is usually winner takes all even despite the fact that the procurement of fertilizer can be in lots and thus allow for more than one supplier. By having a number of companies supplying fertilizer, competition would be introduced during the bidding process as well as during delivery process. However, when only one company is the supplier, the government loses its bargaining power." ❓ And why a trade issue? Limits to regional trade affects prices. As Chilufya notes, “There are still a lot of restrictions to trade which prevent goods, such as soybeans and maize, to be easily traded between surplus and deficit countries." Willard Mwemba Grace Nsomba Heike Fickel Trudi Hartzenberg Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) tralac | Trade Law Centre Simon Roberts
Shamba Centre for Food & Climate
Gemeinnützige Organisationen
Cité, Geneva 2.075 Follower:innen
Disrupting Food Systems to End Hunger
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Our vision is a world without hunger achieved through policies and business models that reward innovation, are nature- and climate-positive and empower small- and medium-sized producers across the food system. Launched in September 2022. 'Shamba' is the Kiswahili word for a farm that grows multiple crops. Sign up for updates on our website: www.shambacentre.org
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https://www.shambacentre.org/
Externer Link zu Shamba Centre for Food & Climate
- Branche
- Gemeinnützige Organisationen
- Größe
- 2–10 Beschäftigte
- Hauptsitz
- Cité, Geneva
- Kunst
- Nonprofit
- Gegründet
- 2022
- Spezialgebiete
- sustainable food systems , climate change, rural livelihoods, sustainable agriculture , ag tech , nutrition, food tech, food on the move, food storage, ecosystem services , food processing und blended financing
Orte
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Primär
Rue Fendt 1
Cité, Geneva 1201, CH
Beschäftigte von Shamba Centre for Food & Climate
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Natalie Mouyal
Communications Manager
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Louise Scholtz
Independent Consultant: Energy, Food and Urban Transitions
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Peris Kahure
Programme Management| International Development| Due Diligence| Grant Management| Stakeholder Management| Risk& Compliance
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Francine Picard
Co-Founder, Shamba Centre for Food & Climate.
Aktualisierungen
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Building on the momentum of FAO's #SOFI2024 report which focused on financing for food security and nutrition, our Co-founders called for further innovation by exploring opportunities in five areas: ➡ Outcome payments, or results-based finance, to reward the achievement of pre-agreed outcomes. ➡ Increase the appetite of domestic lenders to enable SMEs in the agrifood sector to access much-needed capital. ➡ Use sovereign wealth funds to anchor investments. ➡ Credit risk assessment scorecards to help assess the risk of agrifood businesses. ➡ Increase the risk-tolerance of development financial institutions. Many thanks for Farming First for re-publishing our article! Carin Smaller Francine Picard Oshani Perera Quantified Ventures Tee (Terisa) Thomas Hamid Hamirani Khadijah H. Kamal El Harty Lysiane L. EHA Advisory Aceli Africa Brian Milder Peter Beez
Following FAO’s #SOFI2024 report, Shamba Centre for Food & Climate’s Carin Smaller, Oshani Perera and Francine Picard share five innovative ideas to finance food security and nutrition 👇 https://bit.ly/4fCvabE
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The 2025 Kampala summit to adopt the post-Malabo CAADP Declaration will be pivotal in redefining pathways to achieve food security, nutritional health, and economic prosperity across Africa. In the last two decades, Africa has experienced significant economic and agricultural growth. The continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled between 2000 and 2021, and its agricultural sector emerged as one of the fastest growing in the world. How can Africa leverage these achievements in its post-Malabo Agenda? Find out more from Shamba Centre's Co-founder and Director of Partnerships, Francine Picard, who is currently in Kampala to help define the the CAADP Strategy and Action Plan for 2026-2035 https://lnkd.in/e9jPMiM9 Dr Hamady Diop Ibrahim Mayaki Zero Hunger Coalition CAADP CAADP Josefa Sacko African Union
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Our Senior Policy Adviser Lysiane L. will moderate the side event "Mobilising private sector investment to end hunger and enhance nutrition in Africa" on September 2 in Kigali, Rwanda. 👐 The event is organised by the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), AGRA, the Access to Nutrition Initiative and AUDA NEPAD during the Africa Food Systems Forum 2024. 🌍 The discussion will tackle the urgent need for investment in sustainable food systems across the continent, aiming to catalyse efforts to achieve SDG2, and will focus on nutrition, women's empowerment and youth engagement. 🌍 More at ➡ https://lnkd.in/eX3qSfux #AFSForum2024 #SDG2 #FoodSystems #ZeroHunger African Union Development Agency-NEPAD Agriface Kenya Kagwiria Koome ROCKFELLER FOUNDATION INC Siny Samba LE LIONCEAU Bahati W. Prem S. Bindraban International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) Efi Chatzinikolaou Chola Mfula Pinky Maruping Unilever Food Solutions SA Chefs Manifesto
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The African Market Observatory (AMO) Price Tracker for July 2024 is now published! It shows that both Malawi and Zambia have faced a sharp decline in their maize production - with production in Zambia nearly half of production in 2023. The poor harvest is due not only to extreme weather - such as drought - but also to the high price of fertiliser. However, Tanzania has had an excellent maize harvest with a production that has nearly doubled year-on-year from 5.9 million Mt in 2023 to 10 million Mt in 2024. While this will alleviate demand in neighbouring countries, it has not resulted in a decline in prices. Tanzania has benefited from lower prices (US$187/Mt) compared with international levels, while Kenya, Malawi and Zambia face prices between US$320-430/Mt which remain above international prices and do not reflect transport costs between Tanzania and its neighbouring countries. Who is benefitting from the price difference between Tanzania and Kenya, Malawi and Zambia? Read more: https://lnkd.in/eC6azt2d Simon Roberts Heike Fickel Arthur Mahuma Reena Das Nair Namhla Landani Grace Nsomba Chilufya Ninette Kaari Mwarania, MKIM COMESA Competition Commission Competition Authority of Kenya
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Nicholas Shaxson is right. The recently approved $34 billion mega-merger between the global agribusiness giants Bunge and Viterra needs to be broken up. The EU recently approved this merger. However, by strictly focusing on the economics of the merger, the EU has failed to address the power dynamics and its negative impact on prices, innovation, the environment, and resilience. Research from the University of Saskatchewan estimates this merger would cut $770m from annual farm incomes in western Canada. The 'Big Five' in commercial grain - ADM, Bunge, COFCO, Cargill and Louis Dreyfuss - currently control 70-90% of global trade. A SOMO investigation shows that their profits in the last three years tripled in 2020-2021 compared with 2016-2020. Meanwhile, according to the recent figures from the UN SOFI report, 733 million people faced hunger in 2023. High food prices and price volatility limit access to food for many people. And, as our research has shown, more than half of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa lack the necessary competition laws and institutions to regulate monopoly power. https://lnkd.in/eHq-yV6P https://lnkd.in/e_jzDgu3
The EU just approved the Bunge-Viterra food merger. Now it must break them apart.
Nicholas Shaxson auf LinkedIn
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With approximately 733 million people living in hunger, we are far from the global goal of ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. The United Nations’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 (SOFI 2024) confirmed that hunger and malnutrition continued to rise for the 7th year in a row. 💡 To get back on track, we call on the development community to innovate further in five areas: 1️⃣ Outcome payments 2️⃣ Increase the appetite of domestic lenders 3️⃣ Use sovereign wealth funds to anchor investments 4️⃣ Credit risk scorecards 5️⃣ Increase the risk-tolerance of development financial institutions Find out more about our ideas and contribution to #SOFI2024 ⬇ https://lnkd.in/eFZdUi49 #EndHunger #SDG2 #BlendedFinance #Financing
Beyond SOFI 2024: FIve innovative ideas to finance food security and nutrition — Shamba Centre for Food & Climate
shambacentre.org
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🌱 Fonio is a traditional cereal that has been grown for over 5,000 years in West Africa and is highly valued for its nutritional benefits. According to Simballa Sylla, fonio is also a crop suited for the future. “Climate-wise, it is the way to go. It needs little water and can thrive in poor-quality soils without the addition of fertilizers.” Because fonio requires minimal attention during the growing season, it is also known across West Africa as the ‘lazy farmer’s crop.’ Yet, fonio suffers from neglect. Long ignored in favour of rice, wheat and maize, it has not benefited from research and development. As a result, fonio yields remain low since limited improvements have been made to seeds and production techniques. Processing centres are small and decentralised, making it expensive to turn fonio into food. 💪 We have collected testimonials from champions of traditional African crops. ⬇
https://lnkd.in/e9eZ2ZdC This brief piece by Shamba Centre for Food & Climate shares "The Business Case for Fonio" so much more effectively than we have ever managed to do it ourselves! Simballa Sylla Chef Pierre Thiam Yolélé #BrewingForImpact #foodandbeverageindustry #climateaction #sustainabledevelopment #biodiversity
Series of Stories: Testimonials from Champions of Traditional African Crops
https://sway.cloud.microsoft
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This is an interesting article from the Financial Times. Lee Harris interviews the climate finance economist Avinash Persaud who argues that foreign investors in large emerging markets appear to be overpaying to hedge against swings in those countries’ currencies. What’s more, he says, development banks could shoulder some of the currency risk that stems from the global financial cycle, thereby catalysing more foreign investment to support emerging markets’ green plans. ❗ Multilateral Development Banks have a crucial role in de-risking, especially currency risk, for financing value chains of food crops aimed at domestic consumption in developing countries. 📒 Check out our 4️⃣ recommendations in the summary report written with the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development 'Unleashing the catalytic power of donor financing to achieve #SDG2' ⬇ https://lnkd.in/dsAkVwKc #financing #SustainableFinance #Derisking Oshani Perera Kamal El Harty Lysiane L. Nicole Burch Maurizio Navarra Michelle Tang https://on.ft.com/4fy0dp8
Time to trim the hedge costs
ft.com
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Qu Dongyu, Director-General of FAO, called for three tools to end hunger and malnutrition: 1️⃣ Greater financial coordination between partners 2️⃣ Increased activities to de-risk the agrifood sector 3️⃣ More blended financing 📑 We also mentioned these innovative solutions in our recent enquiry on sustainable finance conducted with the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. Among the findings, we discovered that if donors and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) take higher risks with their grants and lending, each donor dollar has the potential to mobilise four dollars in commercial finance. Read the report ➡ https://lnkd.in/dsAkVwKc #BlendedFinance #SOFI2024 #EndHunger #SustainableFinance Oshani Perera Carin Smaller Kamal El Harty Lysiane L. Mali Eber Rose Natalie Mouyal Dr. Alvaro Lario Cindy McCain International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) World Food Programme Maurizio Navarra Michelle Tang Songbae Lee Bruce Campbell Proparco Iris Krebber Nicole Burch https://lnkd.in/eY6mzfUa
Special HLPF Event - SOFI 2024
digital-media.fao.org