Africa seeks increased investments, expanded partnerships on agric revolution

Africa is in urgent search of increased investments and expanded partnerships to promote its agricultural transformation through technology and innovation as Covid-19 had spotlighted cracks in the continent’s food systems.

The continent, with 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of $3 trillion, in pre-Covid-19 era, had already been under strain from climate change, conflicts and pests, with hunger impacting some 246 million of its people.

This stems from extreme poverty of majority of the continent’s citizens. Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent, has the largest number of extremely poor people, with more than 87 million of its people living in severe poverty, which is about 50 per cent of its entire population, according to the World Poverty Index.

According to the World Bank Blogs, Nigeria falls among the five countries (with 368 million people) that contains half of the world’s 736 million extreme poor in 2015. Five countries with the highest number of extreme poor are (in descending order): India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and bring together African heads of state, senior government officials, heads of multilateral development banks, development partners, regional organizations, research institutions, business leaders, private sector operators, investment agencies, the academia, civil society organizations and experts from across Africa and beyond.

The event will, among other things; secure political commitments at the highest level of leadership to replicate success across the continent; showcase impactful stories to secure resources and replicate in priority commodities across the continent; demonstrate what is working in regional agricultural research for development, and what needs to be done to sustain investments; and arrive at a shared vision for mobilizing investments to produce technology and innovation that transform African food systems.

The Feeding Africa highlevel dialogue will conclude with a communiqué that will contribute to the pre-Food Systems Summit in Rome in July 2021, and the United Nations Food Systems Summit later in the year.