Paradigm Shift for Food Sovereignty and the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa

Abstract

Food sovereignty connotes the capacity to define and design food policies that fulfil the expectations of a
nation’s citizens, while limiting or downplaying dependence on external forces or actors and
simultaneously developing agriculture systems and practices that encourage national and regional needs. In
Africa, feeding the citizens has continued to be a mirage as national and State-centric approaches to food and
agricultural policies has remained nebulous, inconsistent and insufficient in addressing the seemingly perennial
and chronic problems of food availability, accessibility, affordability and proper utilisation- the key pillars of
food security. This paper argued that for real and genuine domestication of the sustainable development
goals in Africa, there is the need for a shift in paradigm on food and agriculture policy options. Accomplishing
any significant success in the second goal of the SDGs in relation the African people, therefore requires a
comprehensive strategy that recognises the combined commitment of states, citizens, advocacy movements
and other stakeholders in the processes of formulating and implementing policies on food and agriculture. It is
only through proper adherence to the fundamental tenets of food sovereignty that 2030 targets of the SDGs would
not end up like the 2015 targets of the MDGs which had been adjudged a failure in terms of the capacity to
address world hunger