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Tendai Rupapa in TOKYO, Japan

First Ladies attending the inaugural Asia Pacific Africa Women’s Economic Exchange Summit here have jointly committed themselves as mothers to ensuring sustainable food production and provision of clean water to children for them to survive and grow up healthy.

They acknowledged that in recent years, the environment surrounding children has faced many challenges and difficulties as a result of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, storms as well as infectious diseases and childbirth in unsafe conditions.

The summit was being held under the theme: “To cope with food crisis for the future of children by mothers”

The secretariat of the summit was thrilled by the First Ladies’ passion and commitment to work towards a better future for the children and generations to come.

They promised to work together with the African First Ladies and assist them so that their vision comes to fruition.

Prior to the signing of the declaration, the First Ladies had deliberated on various issues including food self-sufficiency and the need for systems to help one another when need arises.

“We, the representatives of our countries gathered here today, declare to the world our firm commitment to ensuring food production and clean water that children need to survive. In recent years the environment surrounding children has faced many challenges and difficulties.

“Extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods and historic storms, plagues as well as infectious diseases and childbirth in unsafe conditions have had an innumerable impact on children.

“Our wish that children of the future will grow strong and healthy, is shared across borders and beyond religious beliefs by mothers all over the world and we will continue our efforts to ensure that no children in Africa shed tears over hunger,” the First Ladies declared.

Vice Chair of the Asia Pacific Africa Women’s Economic Exchange summit Mrs Fukuyo Nakamori admires First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa’s dress made from the national fabric which the mother of the nation spearheaded as a form of national identity and pride in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday. – Pictures: John Manzongo

They continued: “To make this ardent wish come true, we need to acquire the food security technologies of advanced countries. We fervently hope that advanced countries will provide the technologies and technical guidance that will greatly inspire courage and wisdom among children living in Africa.

“To protect the precious lives of children at a time when the whole world is greatly impacted by climate change we will go forward into the future in a spirit of cooperation and mutual encouragement. We pledge this as Africa’s mothers.”

The First Ladies shared experiences they encountered in their countries due to natural disasters mainly induced by climate change and exchanged opinions on ways to mitigate them.

They also touched on mutual assistance systems in times of natural disasters. First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa gave a detailed account of what Zimbabwe went through as a result of Cyclone Idai which left a trail of destruction sweeping away homes, people and livestock.

To this date, hundreds of people have not been accounted for while infrastructure like roads, bridges and homes that were destroyed are being rebuilt.

“We had our people swept away, the homes were swept away, our domestic animals and everything including food were lost. We also saw big rocks which rolled down from mountains, killing people. To us it was something new because we had never experienced that before.

“As a mother, I visited all the affected areas to assist our people with food, clothes and other amenities through my Angel of Hope Foundation.

“Our clinics and hospitals were overwhelmed and it was an eye-opener that we needed facilities for primary care which attend to our people health-wise and our doctors and nurses need adequate training in disaster management to be able to assist the people fully. We appreciate them for the role they played when disaster struck, they did their best.”

First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa signs the declaration of Zimbabwe’s commitment to ensuring sustainable food production and provision of clean water among other necessities to children during the 1st Asia Pacific Africa Women’s Economic Exchange Summit in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday

Dr Mnangagwa said flash floods were experienced in many parts of the country which destroyed bridges and dams.

“In our country we have already started experiencing the effects of climate change. We are now in the rainy season and we do not know what will happen in case something of that magnitude recurs. As the First Lady, I go around the country raising awareness to all the people including the elderly and other vulnerable groups on the need to promote safety,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa added: “As the country’s patron for environment and tourism, we are engaging small-scale miners urging them to plant trees where they would have dug. I also work with our traditional leaders and their spouses so that we educate communities on the need to protect the environment,” she said.

Amai Mnangagwa acknowledged the work Japan was doing in Zimbabwe through JICA and emphasised the request for it to work with her office for the empowerment of women and good results and to promote NERICA rice production in the  country.

“I am proposing that JICA helps us through my office and as Agric4She Patron in rice production in our country and the proposal is for my office to be involved in some of these programmes, especially in farming which involves a lot of women at grassroots level.

“If my office is involved in a supervisory position, awareness and encouraging women to work hard so that we set up irrigation and the construction of more dams that will help grow foodstuffs throughout the year.

“In Zimbabwe we rely heavily on agriculture so we would humbly request for equipment and also training of how to use that equipment in our country.

“We also have engaged in irrigation in the whole of Zimbabwe where we have some dams which we opened and we would also look for equipment to help us irrigate some of the areas that do not receive enough rainfall. Also irrigation helps us to have food throughout the year where families can go and work in the fields and they get food on the table and income to look after their families.

“Women are hard workers and they are the backbone of the family, so if we can have some food processing machines like peanut butter making, food preservation, oil pressing and vegetables drying machines, this will help women to put food on the table when hit by these disasters,” she said.

First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa and Vice Chair Mrs Fukuyo Nakamori display the declaration she signed together with other African First Ladies committing themselves to ensuring sustainable food production and provision of clean water among other necessities to children during the 1st Asia Pacific Africa Women’s Economic Exchange Summit in Tokyo, Japan, yesterday

Her Malawian counterpart, Mrs Monica Chakwera, also highlighted the natural disasters her country had witnessed.

“People lost their homes and had to be moved to other areas. This was the first time to experience disasters of this nature. Sometimes rainfall patterns are unpredictable, it’s either too much or too little rain.

“When we have little rains, we do not have enough food because we depend on rains for agriculture activities. Let us therefore join hands as mothers of our nations and complement each others’ efforts,” she said.

The wife to the Tanzanian Prime Minister, also highlighted the challenges her country faced.

“Tanzania also experiences natural disasters. Being a country along the Indian Ocean we have experienced earthquakes in the recent past but it was not devastating. We also experience drought from time to time. In all these instances we are grateful to our partners like Japan for extending assistance. Our appeal is for continued support as African countries on such interventions to mitigate the effects of such calamities,” she said.

Gambian First Lady Mrs Fatoumatta Bah-Barrow said disaster prevention measures can be developed and adapted to protect people and communities.

In response, summit chair, Mrs Seiko Hashimoto said Japan was willing to work with the African First Ladies.

“We really appreciate your passionate, enthusiastic engagement and participation in this summit. We are very grateful for your signing of this state of declaration. This declaration will be a shared and valuable asset for children, for the next generation,” she said.

The summit’s Co-chairperson Mrs Geng Hong said; “I hope the passion of each mother of countries who participated in this conference will help reduce the number of challenges affecting children’s growth and have a positive impact on the future of our children. I believe that this was such a fruitful meeting because the mothers of these countries are looking forward and praying for the growth of children and also the stability of our universe.

“We were able to understand your enthusiastic spirit. The declaration we jointly signed, will make us be able to provide hope for our children,” she said.

In her remarks, Mrs Fukuyo Nakamori, the summit Vice chairperson pledged their commitment to assist the mothers of nations in fulfilling their vision.

“We hope we will have strong relationship as mothers. We hope that we will focus and emphasise on the areas highlighted. We want to fulfil our commitment to assist you as African countries,” she said.