The Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit Side Event

Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria, Mr. Arun Baral, HarvestPlus CEO, Sasakawa Africa Association Chair, Dr. Ruth Oniang’o and Vice Chair, Dr. Amit Roy, and agricultural researchers and extension workers. I would like to pay my respects to your endless efforts in achieving food security and positive nutrition in the developing countries through agriculture. I would also like to express my gratitude for having been given this opportunity to address you today at this gathering.

“One World One Family”. This is the fundamental philosophy of The Nippon Foundation. It is the core of our humanitarian activities across the boundaries of politics, religion, race and national borders. Sasakawa Africa Association was and is no exception. The year was 1984, when a great famine was declared in Ethiopia. More than a million people including women and children suffered extreme famine. Seeing this, my late father Ryoichi Sasakawa together with Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug and former US president Jimmy Carter established SAA in 1986 to provide humanitarian assistance.

Africa at the time was facing chronic food shortage. Temporary emergency food aid alone would not have solved the underlying cause. In order that “no child would ever go to bed hungry”, SAA took its assistance to the farmers. Through increased food production, small holder farmers, who are the mainstay of agriculture in Africa, would become independent and improve their livelihood. Yet, in retrospect, 35 years of history was not in any way a smooth road. SAA has faced many difficult problems. However, each challenge was overcome with the spirit of “never giving up”. As a result of having walked on, hand in hand, with the farmers, tremendous improvement in food production has been achieved.

Having come this far, SAA is, once again, ready to direct its focus for further development of agriculture in Africa. It has now placed “nutrition sensitive agriculture” as one of the three major pillars of its activities. Until now the major goal was to improve food productivity to end hunger. But with the current strategic plan I firmly believe that it will be possible to improve the growth and development of children and to maintain the health of the farming communities. I am very happy that such undertakings of SAA have led to the conclusion of partnership agreement with HarvestPlus. I would invite full cooperation from the experts present today and hope that together we will achieve the realization of Africa filled with hope. Thank you.

＊This video message is available at The Nippon Foundation YouTube.