CARD Secretariat, April 2025
Message from the new CARD Secretariat General Coordinator
I am Shinjiro Amameishi, newly assigned as CARD General Coordinator in April 2025. Some of you may remember me from the previous CARD General Meeting held in Côte d’Ivoire in 2023, where I served as Co-Chair. I have been involved in agricultural development in Asia and Africa for over 30 years at JICA. The latter half of my working career is Africa. I was stationed in Tanzania and Kenya, or worked from JICA Headquarters to promote agricultural development in Africa.
In Africa, the demand for food crops is increasing due to population growth, but production growth has not kept pace with demand, leading to an increase in import dependency and heightening the risk of future food insecurity. Rice, in particular, has seen a significant increase in demand in recent years. Africa imported 17.12 million tons of rice (2023), which is 3.4 times more than in 2000. Increasing rice production is an urgent issue facing Africa.
At the Extraordinary African Union (AU) Summit last January in Uganda, the Kampala CAADP Declaration was adopted, committing to promote Sustainable and Resilient Agri-food Systems over the next 10 years from 2026 to 2035. The Green Revolution, which achieved a remarkable increase in food crops from the 1960s to the 1990s, was a success due to the efforts of governments in developing countries, particularly in Asia, which prioritized increasing the production of food crops such as rice and wheat. However, the current situation in Africa differs from that of the past, and in addition to increasing food production, it is necessary to address various important issues such as climate change, gender, youth, digitalization and etc.. Furthermore, while the governments of each country played a leading role in the Green Revolution in Asia, it will now be necessary for a wide range of stakeholders to collaborate to support the governments of each country.
Despite the diversification of development issues in the agriculture sector in Africa, the importance of food security remains unchanged. In fact, the importance of food security has increased due to the food crisis experienced by Africa as a result of COVID-19 and the invasion of Ukraine from 2020 to 2023. CARD Phase 2 aims to double rice production from 2018 levels by 2030 (56 million tons in 2030). We will work in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, including African governments, international organizations, development partners, research institutes, NGOs/CSOs, and the private sector, to advance CARD Phase 2. Let us work together and make every effort to increase rice production, develop the rice industry, and achieve food security in Africa.
Shinjiro Amameishi
General Coordinator, CARD Secretariat
