To recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, it is imperative to increase responsible investment in agriculture that boosts domestic production for food security, generates respectable employment opportunities, and contributes to sustainable development, according to Andrew Nadeau, FAO Senior Capacity Development Officer, at the conference “Boosting responsible investment in agriculture and food systems – good practices to #Buildbackbetter,” which was held in Dakar on February 2.
30 representatives from government agencies, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, young farmers, and agribusinesses from Liberia, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Tunisia came together for the event, which was sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Information, Training and Outreach Center for Africa (ITOCA), to share knowledge and best practices in promoting responsible investment (RAI).
“The agriculture sector was already suffering from major underinvestment before the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to Oumar Syll, FAO Senegal’s National Expert on Responsible Investment in Agriculture, “raising investments that are aligned with national development goals is even more urgent today given the recent rise in poverty and hunger in the region.
According to the Committee on World Food Security’s Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, FAO has been promoting the promotion of “responsible investments,” or investments that are sustainable on an economic, social, and environmental level (CFS-RAI).
In the affected nations, FAO’s strategy focuses on supporting important change agents who act as catalysts in the reform of the regulatory environment for investments.
Activities involving capacity building, advocacy, and policy discourse have all been a part of this strategy.
Yannick Fiedler, a programme officer with the FAO, said: “We are paying particular focus at enhancing governance and empowering young in agriculture, as those are two significant issues that arose prominently during the learning process and multi-stakeholder dialogues held.”
The astounding outcomes of this method were displayed during the event. The incubation program “Agri-accelerator investment hub” that the Tunisian Agricultural Investment Promotion Agency launched last year in collaboration with the National Institute of Agricultural Research of Tunisia and with support from FAO was one of the good practices that was most valued by participants.
“The populations of Sierra Leone and Liberia are both very young.
We are unable to draw these young people to agriculture, despite the fact that they could be playing a significant part in the economic and social growth of our countries.
Jeneba Alharazim, Deputy Head of the Agribusiness Promotion Unit in the Government of Sierra Leone, stated that in this regard, the Tunisian experience “gives us indications about the aspects that a solid strategy to promote young entrepreneurship should contain.”
According to Joseph Yeanay, a legal assistant at the Liberia Land Authority, “this event has been really valuable because coming together we recognize that we have many issues in common, and learning about solutions that have been successful in other nations provides us tremendous encouragement.”
According to Chiara Nicodemi, FAO Capacity Development Officer, “with these exchanges, our aim is to encourage the emergence of a community of practitioners who, taking ownership of the CFS-RAI Principles, become leaders in the transformation of the investment environment in agriculture in their countries.”
A roadmap with a number of important recommendations was the event’s consequence for furthering ethical investing in the area.
The three most important ones were (I) creating national frameworks for concerted decision-making on RAI, (II) drafting national RAI policies, and (III) utilizing the CFS-RAI to improve and harmonize national policies, regulations, and incentives.
These initiatives have been carried out thanks to the kind assistance of the FAO’s Flexible Multi-Partner Mechanism and the Federal Government of Germany.