Mr. Chair,
Governors of IFAD,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen;

I take this opportunity to congratulate Dr. Kanayo Nwanze for being elected  President of IFAD for a second term.  I have known Dr. Kanayo in his days in the International Research System in the 1990s as a man of results and his speech yesterday was nothing less than a demonstration of this record.  We are honored and proud to have supported Dr. Kanayo for his First term and we are confident that he will deliver our expectations of a food secure world in his second term.

I would like to  inform this council that with support of IFAD and other development partners, Kenya has implemented one of the most transformative agricultural programs in Africa, moving an agricultural growth rate from a negative 3 percent in 2002 to now an average of 6 percent in 2012, and food insecurity level from 56 percent to 36 percent in the same period, despite the national and global political, financial and economic upheavals in the same period.  To follow from Chinese example, we now need to reduce food insecurity by 8 percent to achieve the millennium development goals by 2015, which we have set ourselves to achieve by 2014. 

I  would also like to  inform this council that Kenya is now at the edge of implementing the deepest reforms in agriculture since independence by consolidating   more than 131 acts of parliament that govern agriculture to only 5 Acts.  The crops Act 2012, the Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food Authority Act 2012, and the Kenya Agricultural Organization Act 2012  have been passed by parliament and accented to by his Excellency the President Mwai Kibaki. The Fisheries Act 2012 and Livestock Act 2012 are in the pipeline.  With the new constitution of 2010, all the old laws in agriculture have been repelled, implying that the sector will no longer be governed by any law prior to 2012.   We believe that these kind of reforms can be duplicated in most countries in sub Saharan Africa so that UN bodies such as IFAD,FAO and Overseas Development Assistance can achieve the results of a food secure Africa that is so much desired.

We are proud to say that with more than US $ 250 million ongoing support to the agricultural sector in Kenya, IFAD has been, and will continue to be a partner to this transformation.

It is for this reason that we increased our contribution to IFAD from US $100,000 to US $ 500,000 last year. We  promise that  to  honor our obligation.  I urge other African  countries to not only be members of this Governing Council, but to also support IFAD by increasing their contribution.  We need to increase our share to the success of IFAD Dr. Kanayo.

Thank you