African countries are the most affected by food shortages in the world. This was stated on Wednesday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal, Aissata Tall Sall, speaking at the US-organized ministerial conference on food security.
"African states are the most affected by the current food shortage in the world, there is a very alarming situation in Africa," the minister said. - "According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 257 million people are hungry in Africa, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Food Program (WFP), drought threatens to starve 20 million people in the Horn of Africa. Yet the coronavirus epidemic has already reduced the continent's gross domestic product by 3.2% and pushed 55 million Africans into poverty".
"In these circumstances, we, the current President of Senegal Macky Sall is also the Chairman-in-Office of the African Union, propose a number of measures to resolve this particularly difficult situation for Africa," stressed the foreign minister. - "First of all, we must by all means reduce inflation through multilateral financial aid. This will enable the least developed countries to cope with the financial shock. I call on the G7, the G20 and the International Monetary Fund to restore the external debt standstill mechanism. This will help fight the food crisis. We ask for a five-year postponement of the next schedule of payments on the debts of African countries".
"Another way of solving these problems is to transfer special borrowing rights from richer countries to African states," the minister pointed out. - "Africa was pledged $256 billion, but so far we have only received $33 billion. Third, we think it is important to increase social transfers to the most vulnerable, as we are already doing in Senegal, by helping 142 000 poor families".
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS