The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group has approved 24 fast-track programmes to assist Africa in reducing inflation and rising food costs brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
The Bank launched the $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility in May to improve food security, nutrition, and resilience throughout the continent.
The first round of approvals is a component of this facility.
The facility will expand access to agricultural fertilisers and offer certified seeds to 20 million smallholder farmers throughout Africa.
Additionally, it will help with policy and governance change, which is anticipated to stimulate more investment in Africa’s agricultural sector.
Over the next two years, 38 million additional tonnes of food will be able to be produced by African farmers thanks to the African Emergency Food Production Facility.
This food is believed to be worth $12 billion.
A total of $1.13 billion in mixed financing for Emergency Facility initiatives aimed at 24 countries, including eight in West Africa, five in East Africa, six in Southern Africa, four in Central Africa, and one in North Africa, had been approved by the Bank Group’s Board of Directors as of July 15.
Dr. Beth Dunford, vice president of the African Development Bank for agriculture, human and social development, declared that this week was historic for both the African Development Bank and the African Emergency Food Production Facility.
These initiatives “would provide access to affordable fertilisers, much-needed crops that are climate-adapted, and regulatory reforms that will enable the agricultural sector to provide immediate, medium-term, and long-term answers to difficulties encountered in regional member nations.”
Programs are being developed by the African Emergency Food Production Facility to accommodate requests from more continental nations.
The plant concentrates on staple crops, which are mostly imported by several African countries from Russia and the Ukraine.
However, the continent now has a food shortage of at least 30 million tonnes as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
38 million tonnes of food will be produced if the factory is put into operation, which is more than what is imported from Russia and the Ukraine combined.
A total of 11 million tonnes of wheat, 18 million tonnes of maize, 6 million tones of rice, and 2.5 million tonnes of soybeans would be produced by African farmers thanks to the plant.
Building on the success of the Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) platform, the programme will be implemented. TAAT, which was established in 2019, provided 1.8 million farmers in seven countries with heat-tolerant wheat seed varieties.
Additionally, it led to a $840 million boost in wheat production of 2.7 million tonnes.
Complete list of nations who received certifications in the first batch:
Senegal, Liberia, Niger, Togo, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire, and West Africa (8) Nigeria Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, South Sudan, and Somalia are all in East Africa. Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique are the six countries of Southern Africa.
Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic make up Central Africa. Egyptian North Africa (1)