From August 29 to 31, the Congo Basin Regional Summit on Reconciling Food Production with Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Emergency was held in Kinshasa.
Organized by AFSA (Alliance pour la Souveraineté Alimentaire en Afrique) and a consortium of civil society organizations from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the regional summit for the Congo Basin brought together over 200 participants representing producer organizations, civil society, governments and donors. The regional summit was an opportunity to highlight the challenges and opportunities linked to food systems in the Congo Basin.
The Kinshasa meeting featured a number of high-level presentations, including exchanges on four main themes: indigenous peoples, climate change, biodiversity conservation and food systems in the Congo Basin. The latter was the subject of a plenary presentation by SAILD’s agroecology program manager. As keynote speaker, he highlighted challenges such as land grabbing by agro-industries, weak support for family farming and sustainable agricultural systems such as agroecology, and dependence on food exports as obstacles to sustainable and resilient food systems in the Congo Basin.
At the end of the regional summit, the Kinshasa Declaration was adopted by all participants and handed over to representatives of the DRC government. In particular, the declaration calls for recognition of the potential of agroecology as a solution for establishing climate-resilient food systems and strengthening local communities and indigenous peoples.
Rodrigue.kouang@saild.org
