Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is in Rome, Italy to attend a three-day United Nations Food Systems Summit. His address will focus on Kenya’s food systems transformation initiative. Gachagua will represent President William Ruto at the significant summit, whose participants are mainly Heads of State and key organisations. Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will take part in the meeting. The leaders are seeking lasting solutions to hunger, malnutrition and mitigating the impact of climate change.
The three-day high-level talks will kick off with Kenya setting the stage with a keynote address by the Deputy President on Financing Food Systems. The address will focus on Kenya’s Food Systems Transformation Initiative, as part of stocktaking of the commitment of States, Governments and other Stakeholders in allocating resources to end hunger and malnutrition.
The Summit will also discuss, at length, the school meals programme in which States also work with other partners in ensuring pupils in public primary schools receive food and in balanced rations, to promote health and education.
At the plenary, which will be attended by several Heads of State and Government, as well as UN agencies including the World Food Programme, and the Food Agriculture Organisation, the Kenyan delegation will highlight the progress made in Kenya since 1980, when the school meals programme was rolled out.
Among other initiatives, Gachagua will also speak to measures of sustainably lowering the cost of living; especially subsidising production, as opposed to consumption; the case of the subsidised fertiliser.
And later on today, the Deputy President will engage with Kenyans living in Italy, at a dinner at the Westin Hotel in Rome. At the meeting with Kenyans, the Deputy President intends to understand their needs. The Kenya Kwanza Administration is keen on supporting Diaspora investment back home through structured frameworks. Diaspora remittances into the country last year almost hit half a trillion Kenya shillings, with the country receiving Ksh. 185.9 billion in the first quarter of this year.
On Tuesday morning, the Deputy President will speak at a breakfast side meeting on homegrown sources of food for the school meals programme. The meeting, hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), aims to explore opportunities for countering climate change.
He is also accompanied by Dorcas Gachagua.