Monitoring Desk
ZAMBIA: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday called for urgent action to improve long-term food security in Africa and worldwide while adapting technology and agricultural practices to the changing climate.
Yellen spoke after listening to a woman beekeeper and other farmers whose work was supported by a US-backed project in a rural Zambian village. “This project shows how our countries can collaborate to address two of the most critical issues facing the world and particularly Zambia: climate adaptation and food security,” said Yellen, the first Cabinet-level US official to visit Zambia in a decade.
Yellen also met with the Twalumbu Savings Group, which helps its members pool resources to invest in livestock, equipment, feed, and seeds, which in turn helps them expand their revenues and food production.
US and African Union collaboration
Member Faustina Piri welcomed the US official’s visit to the remote area as a significant achievement, noting that the savings club was making “a huge difference” in improving the lives of all those involved.
Yellen said that the number of people facing acute food insecurity worldwide had reached 345 million in 80 countries since the war began, with about 2 million in Zambia alone facing acute food insecurity.
Last month, the United States and the African Union signed a strategic food security initiative at Biden’s African Leaders Summit.
Yellen said that Washington would continue to support short-term efforts to increase access to food after committing $2 billion in emergency aid to Africa last year. Still, the long-term goal was to make the need for humanitarian assistance “exceptional and rare.”
