During a recent visit to Heifer International’s operations in Africa, Heifer’s new President and CEO, Surita Sandosham, reaffirmed the commitment of the organization to elevate 10 million smallholder farming households globally out of poverty and into economic self-reliance by 2030, in line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Sandosham visited Africa as the first stop on a global tour of the nonprofit development organization’s operations, which will also include visits to regional teams in Asia and the Americas.
She met the Africa team members at the regional headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria, which gave her an opportunity to share her vision and excitement for the work Heifer Africa is doing in the region.
While visiting the country, she met with some of Heifer’s young agritech innovation partners and other key stakeholders in Nigeria, reaffirming Heifer’s commitment to work with youth and innovate to transform Africa’s food systems, as well as working alongside smallholder farmers, producers, cooperatives and others to ensure sustainable agricultural interventions.
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While addressing stakeholders, Sandosham said, “Heifer believes that smallholder farmers hold the key to transforming Africa’s food insecurity.
“With food importation across Africa averaging over USD 43 billion annually, we believe that access to finance, access to innovation, access to infrastructure and access to training, can increase food production and strengthen local food systems, reducing vulnerability to climate shocks and long-term dependency on imports.”
Speaking on the CEO’s visit to the region, Heifer International Senior Vice President for Africa Programs Adesuwa Ifedi said, “Having the CEO visit the region and meet our partners and key stakeholders, was critical to restating our position that for Africa’s food systems to thrive, the combination of interventions and partnerships at all levels is needed.
“Our strategic goal as a region over the next eight years is to assist more than six million farmers to reach a sustainable living income by 2030, through strategic private and public sector partnerships to reach transformational scale,” he stated.
