Business Leaders Take Action to Improve Food Security

Business Alliance outlines innovative solutions to hunger in Africa

Geneva, Switzerland, 18 January 2008 – The World Economic Forum’s Business Alliance Against Chronic Hunger today launched a report outlining business strategies that are improving food production and incomes on the ground in Africa. World leaders will discuss scaling up these strategies to improve food security in Africa and other regions at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008 in Davos, Switzerland, 23-27 January.

The report, The Business Role in Achieving a Green Revolution for Africa: A Report on Experience to Date of the Business Alliance Against Chronic Hunger, summarizes the work of over 20 companies and partner organizations that are working in the hunger-stricken Siaya district in Kenya.

Alliance partners undertook 10 pilot initiatives in 2007 to strengthen food value chains in Siaya by expanding retail networks for agricultural inputs and food supplies, sourcing and processing high-value products from local farmers, and strengthening entrepreneurship through training and access to finance.

Expanding operations to poverty and hunger-stricken areas can yield business returns as well as social benefits, the report emphasizes. 

"In collaboration with our other partners, Unilever has extended its supply chain to source spices from farmers in Siaya District," said Patrick Cescau, CEO of Unilever, a founding member of the Alliance which assigned a senior executive to manage the Alliance's Kenya operations."Working with small farmers in this way is a 'win-win' for both parties. The farmers benefit from a guaranteed market for their crops that helps improve their livelihoods. We on the other hand are able to locally source the spices that we need for our Royco stock cubes in Kenya."

“The Alliance is demonstrating new approaches to ending hunger that are practical and sustainable,” added William V. Hickey, Chief Executive Officer of Sealed Air, also an Alliance founder. “We’re helping farmers to produce higher-value goods and secure better prices by linking them to markets.”

By sharing practical business models with a broad network of companies, the Alliance is encouraging others to adopt its approach. 

Private sector engagement is essential to achieving a “Green Revolution” to revolutionize food production in Africa, the report argues.

“The Alliance is the first effort to engage businesses, including global and local companies from all industries, in a comprehensive and integrated way as active partners in Africa’s Green Revolution, starting in Kenya,” said Akinwumi A. Adesina, Vice-President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

Improving food security is recognized as an increasingly urgent priority for many global leaders, due to the rising costs and uncertainties of food production. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2008 named food security as a major new global risk facing the world.

“This is a good example of business applying leadership, expertise and market power to help address societal problems,” said Jean-Pierre Rosso, Chairman of the Centre for Global Industries at the World Economic Forum. “Through this Alliance, the Forum has created a working model and an opportunity to leverage the joint capacities of global and local companies, diverse industries and multiple stakeholders. It shows global corporate citizenship in action.”

The Alliance report can be downloaded at: Report
For further questions, contact: Lisa Dreier at lisa.dreier@weforum.org