DANIELONTAYE

Capital: How long have you been working as a painter? Daniel Taye: It has been more than 25 years since I start painting. I have graduated from Addis Ababa University with art degree in 1990. Since then I have been in the art industry.

Capital: How do you see the current growth of the industry?

Daniel Taye: Today, the artistic practices of the late 1970s and 1980s seem to have all disappeared. However, since the new generation of artists are influenced by the country’s tumultuous past, doubts linger as to what to do and how to define it. Themes, techniques, and subject matter repeat themselves in endless yet lively variation in an attempt to gain approval and recognition.

Capital: How was the last three decades in the art industry?

Daniel Taye: It was good, and also challenging, sometimes your work makes you happy and sometimes you could hate everything you have been doing. Through this period I have shown my works on more than 20 exhibitions, displaying more than 80 different paintings. The last time I have done an exhibition was five years ago. After that this one is going to be my first. Most of my drawings show time, situations, emotions and events. My work has been exhibited in numerous venues throughout Ethiopia including the National Museum, Goethe-institute and the Italian Cultural Institute. Also my drawings were showcased internationally including in Holland and the United States among others. Also St. George Gallery has exhibited my work since 2000 and some of my paintings are part of the Gallery’s permanent collections.

Capital: How do you describe Art?

Daniel Taye: Art is an expression of our thoughts, emotions, intuitions, and desires, but it is even more personal than that: it’s about sharing the way we experience the world, which for many is an extension of personality.

Capital: How do you describe yourself as an artist? Daniel Taye: I describe myself as an artist who inspires more puzzled expressions than praises. Most of my paintings might not fit any of the usual categories of fine art, traditional religious art, or abstract impressionism but the strokes and the enchanting color schemes over the canvas bring his work alive. He experiments with different mediums, color composition and depth. Most of them are landscape and figurative work.

Capital: What inspires you to be an artist? Daniel Taye: I grew up closely involved with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Every corner of Churches display different paintings which has the power to explain the bible with drawings so that people can easily understand. That has been always forced me to get in the art industry.

Capital: What was the challenges you have been facing?

Daniel Taye: There were lots of challenges throughout this time, but one thing I want to select is Covid, the limitation to gathering has hindered us to show case our works, to meet people. Especially for those of us who didn’t have any other income expect selling our works. Capital: Tell us about your exhibition, what is your plan?

Daniel Taye: My exhibition is going to the first in 5 years. I am planning to show case more than 20 drawings for 15 days starting from April 8, 2022. Most of the drawing has descriptions of time and situations, beside the show case I will also expect to sell drawings.

If ever there was a time to drastically raise food production in Africa, it is now.

change, the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and other development partners are already working to bring climate-resilient techniques to small-scale producers who grow most of Africa’s food.

The GCA estimates that investing to climate-proof African farms costs less than one-tenth of the damage inflicted by climate disasters, including crop losses, disaster relief, rebuilding roads and getting farmers back on their feet. For sub-saharan Africa, these sunk costs are estimated at $201 billion a year, compared to the investments needed for climate adaptation in agriculture, which is estimated at $15 billion, again according to the GCA.

Farmers in sub-saharan Africa face the combined challenges of a rapidly changing climate, malnutrition and a growing population. They will need more resilient, productive and nutritious crops if they are to meet this challenge. Such change must happen quickly and at scale. In Africa, climate change could wipe out 15% of gross domestic product by 2030. This means an additional 100 million people forced into poverty by the end of the decade.

Protecting the continent’s rich biodiversity is a route to boosting agricultural yields and finding new crop varieties that are better suited to drier and hotter climates. Genebanks conserve thousands of important plant samples which scientists can use to develop better varieties, but for years they have suffered from insufficient funding and inadequate staffing, putting plant collections and future food security at risk.

The BOLD Project, run by the Crop Trust and funded by Norway and the European Union, provides financial and technical support for genebanks in Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana to reach international standards of operation, ensuring collections are safe and available for use over the long term. With food prices climbing and supplies disrupted by conflict, Africa needs to harness as many climate-resilient solutions as it can, quickly and at scale, to stave off the threat of a catastrophic food crisis. Investing in climate adaptation for agriculture is the smartest, most costefficient way to guarantee the continent’s food security. There is no time to waste.

Patrick Verkooijen is CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim is Norway’s Minister of International Development and Akinwumi Adesina is President of the African Development Bank.