 Good morning everyone. I'm sorry we had a technical hitch here. Sorry that I couldn't come on as soon as I was asked. The Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed. The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clement Agbar. The National Conveno of Nigeria Food Systems Summit Dialogue and Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Ulushalai Dou. United Nations Resident Coordinator, Mr. Agbar Kalan. The Representative of Bilateral Donals and Health Advisor, FCDO Nigeria, Mr. Diego Moroso. Paper presenters, honoured guests, participants, ladies and gentlemen. I am most delighted to be with you this morning for this very crucial dialogue on the Nigeria Food System in collaboration with the United Nations to raise global awareness and shape global commitments towards mobilising food systems to address hunger, reduce dietary-related diseases and strengthen plenary health. The Secretary General of the United Nations deserves our commendation for this proactive initiative, especially its importance in urgently achieving the sustainable development goals. I am told that the plan is for each member state to organise three dialogues, an inception dialogue and exploratory dialogue and a consolidatory dialogue. The inception dialogue, which is this event, is designed to take place at the national level, while the exploratory dialogue will be at the state level. The obvious wisdom is to make this process as inclusive and as participatory as possible, and I am keenly interested in ensuring that this is the case. The issue of developing a sustainable food system has never been more urgent and more existential. In our case, perhaps more so than in many other countries. Why? We are faced with the population growth that exceeds growth figures handsomely. Poverty has deepened, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. Manutrition and unhealthy dietary practices create unique threats to health and productivity for generation after generation. So it is a significant challenge to produce enough food for a rapidly growing population, especially given the changes required in modernisation of farming practices, mechanisation and reduction of post harvest losses, etc. But there are also questions around ensuring environmentally sustainable production practices, creating empowering jobs and livelihoods and building capacities to ensure sustainable and healthy food systems. Now these issues require expertise and experience, but also the views of those who will literally be at the receiving end of these plans. In other words, at these dialogues, we don't just want to hear only the experts, we want to hear those who are at the receiving end. In other words, for whom all of these plans are being made, the people of the country, or across all strata of society. Now this brings me to the matter of ensuring that these dialogues are accessible to all, meaning that they do not become, as I said, one for experts, essentially just talking shop. In my conversations with my advisors on agriculture and nutrition, I was saying to them how notoriously technical some of the material on food systems and nutrition can be. So I think our experts have to help us here, if we are to convoke a truly national and inclusive dialogue on these important issues. I think first, even the five tracks of the five objectives of the dialogues need to be broken down further, a more accessible language used. And secondly, we should identify the key issues by presenting simple questions that the average non-technical person can contribute to. Let me take one issue as an example. What does sustainable consumption mean? This is one of the objectives or one of the five tracks. What does sustainable consumption mean? And what is its relevance in this dialogue? So sustainable food consumption or environmentally sustainable food consumption has been defined by, I think it was at the Oslo conference, as the use of food products that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials, and a mission of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations. In other words, the food we produce and eat, how we produce and how we cook, how we eat should be environmentally friendly and not destroy the environment for future generations. Now that seems simple enough. Aside from the inherent difficulties of recommending dietary changes, which is habit-forming, and for most people, there are tough questions about what practices make sense in a high income country and what will make sense in a less developed country. So we know, for example, that reduction in meat consumption is recommended as environmentally friendly. But in low income countries, such as ours, where there is less than nutritionally acceptable micronutrient consumption, that is, our people eat less meat because it's costly, we actually need to make meat products cheaper. So there are also issues about how we cook. So just back to that point. So in a high income country, it may make sense to talk about reducing meat products and reducing meat consumption for environmental purposes. But in a low income country, such as ours, where we find that protein micronutrients are in short supply in our diets. Obviously, we should be looking at increasing meat products. Now, for me, I think that some of these issues are nuanced and we really need to take a closer look, especially at these dialogues, so that our conversations are reflective of the issues that concern us as a nation, as a people, and especially as a developing country. There are also issues about how we cook. So the vast majority of our people in the hinterlands still use firewood and even in urban areas, a lot of kerosene, which is, and all of these, of course, I know now for environmentally friendly practices. So we must transition to gas and to LPG. And of course, this sort of transition has its own implications, has its own economic implications. But this is the direction that we must go. So these sorts of conversations are important. In other words, we cannot talk about cooking, which, of course, is a fundamental part of our food systems and how food finally ends up on our tables, without talking about the transition to gas, the transition to using LPG and other more environmentally friendly fuel sources. But even as we debate those issues, we must bear in mind that somewhere else debates are going on about defunding gas projects. Debates are going on, you know, that, oh, that even gas isn't environmentally friendly enough. So we have to take all of these issues into account, especially because we are debating issues in the international community. We are contributing to a global conversation. And it's so important that the nuances of our own society, the nuances of our own, of our own situation are introduced into this conversation so that the conversation is richer, fairer, and more just for our people. I think we must also make it clear that this summit is about the entire chain from farm to table and all that is in between, including retailers, food processors, technology providers, and financial institutions. All of these sectors are involved in this, in the chain. And so they are relevant, they are relevant in this summit. And all of their views have to be brought to the table. And all of this shows the interrelatedness. And we need to demonstrate this to show the interrelatedness of each part of the chain and how the weak links affect all else. This will be an important consideration in making this dialogue as accessible and as inclusive as possible. The inception dialogue, this dialogue, is the first in the series of dialogues. And I must commend the national convener, Mrs. Ulyusha Laidu and her team, all the partners and the UN agencies who have supported in organizing the series of dialogues. Your work is of great consequence because it affects us all and will determine the shape of the future. So I wish you all a very, very happy and fruitful deliberations. And we're all looking forward, excitedly, to the results of these dialogues. Thank you very much. God bless you.