Africa Dialogue Series 2022 High Level Policy Forum “Building Nutrition Resilience on the African Continent: Accelerating Human Capital, Social and Economic Development”

1) Building resilience goes beyond crop diversification and productivity increases. It calls for building social and human capital and understanding that food systems are more than value chains – they are socio-ecological systems, and ecological sustainability results directly from the level of human capital. In this regard, social and human capital addresses the non-monetary dimension of poverty and is an important requirement for building capacities in terms of absorption, recovery, adaptation and transformation – the four dimensions of resilience.
2) Productivity-enhancing technologies and practices are an important entry point for agricultural transformation. However, even once they are on the market, there are still significant gaps in access and uptake of these solutions by farmers, especially for women who make up most of the smallholder farmers and who are among them. would benefit the most. Women farmers in many African countries provide 50-80% of the productive labor force, but receive only a fraction of extension services (7%), access to finance (1%) and education. access to inputs compared to men. Giving women farmers the same inputs and education as men could increase their yields by more than 20%.