NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 30 — Former African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina has challenged African governments to demonstrate stronger political will to end hunger, arguing that the continent’s biggest obstacle is no longer a lack of technology but a failure to scale proven agricultural innovations.

📻 Breaking It Down

Speaking during the World Food Prize Foundation’s DialogueNEXT in Africa conference in Nairobi, Adesina said Africa already possesses the scientific breakthroughs, improved crop varieties and institutional knowledge required to transform agriculture, but leaders must now be held politically accountable for delivering food security.

“The challenge in Africa is not technology anymore. It’s not innovation anymore. It’s not even policies anymore because we know what to do,” Adesina said on the sidelines of the high-level summit aimed at accelerating agricultural innovation and strengthening food systems as the continent faces mounting climate pressures and rapid population growth.

The 2017 World Food Prize Laureate said nearly 320 million Africans continue to suffer from hunger and acute malnutrition despite decades of advances in agricultural science.

📌 What You Need to Know

“It is not acceptable. The abnormal must never be normalised,” he said.

“There must therefore be political accountability for the poverty and the hunger that we see. Governments have the duty and responsibility to ensure this should not be the case.”

Adesina pointed to Ethiopia’s transformation into a wheat self-sufficient nation within four years as evidence that decisive political leadership, backed by science, can rapidly boost food production.

“If that can be done in Ethiopia, why can’t that be done in several other countries?” he asked.

He argued that governments should place agriculture at the centre of national development agendas and increase public pressure on political leaders to prioritise food security.

“We must put social pressure on the political class to end the hunger that we see. There is nothing magical about ending hunger. But if we become comfortable with the abnormal situation, it becomes normal.”

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya