Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB Group President
President of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has said that Africa must prepare for the inevitability of a global food crisis.
He called for an increased sense of urgency amid what he described as a once-in-a-century convergence of global challenges for Africa.
Dr. Adesina made the call when he delivered a speech as a guest at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on Friday.
According to him, the continent’s most vulnerable countries have been hit hardest by conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which had upended economic and development progress in Africa adding that with the lowest GDP growth rates, the continent had lost as many as 30 million jobs on account of the pandemic.
He also noted the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war which its impact has spread far beyond Ukraine to other parts of the world, including Africa.
“Russia and Ukraine supply 30 percent of global wheat exports, the price of which has surged by almost 50 percent globally, reaching identical levels as during the 2008 global food crisis. He added that fertilizer prices had tripled, and energy prices had increased, all fueling inflation,” he explained.
Dr. Adesina therefore warned that the tripling costs of fertilizer, rising energy prices, and rising costs of food baskets, could worsen in Africa in the coming months noting that 90 percent of Russia’s $4 billion exports to Africa in 2020 was made up of wheat; and 48 percent of Ukraine’s near $3 billion exports to the continent was made of wheat and 31 percent of maize.
“To fend off a food crisis, Africa must rapidly expand its food production. The African Development Bank is already active in mitigating the effects of a food crisis through the African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility – a dedicated facility being considered by the Bank to provide African countries with the resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertilizer,” AfDB President said.
“My basic principle is that Africa should not be begging. We must solve our own challenges ourselves without depending on others, he added.
Interventions
The bank chief spoke about early successes through the bank’s innovative flagship initiative, Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme which is operating across nine food commodities in more than 30 African countries.
He said the TAAT has helped to rapidly boost food production at scale on the continent, including the production of wheat, rice and other cereal crops.
“We are putting our money where our mouth is. We are producing more and more of our own food. Our Africa Emergency Food Production Plan will produce 38 million metric tons of food,” he said.
According to Dr. Adesina, TAAT has already delivered heat-tolerant varieties of wheat to 1.8 million farmers in seven countries adding that they were now being planted across hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia and Sudan, with extraordinary results.
“In Ethiopia, where the government has put the TAAT program to work in a 200,000-hectare lowland irrigated wheat program, farmers are reporting yields of 4.5 to five times per hectare. He said TAAT’s climate-smart seeds were also thriving in Sudan, which recorded its largest wheat harvest ever – 1.1 million tons of wheat – in the 2019-2020 season,” he explained.
“TAAT came to the rescue during the drought in southern Africa in 2018 and 2019, deploying heat-tolerant maize varieties which were cultivated by 5.2 million households on 841 thousand hectares. As a result, he said, farmers survived the drought in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, allowing maize production to expand by 631,000 metric tons to a value of $107 million,” he added.
Dr. Adesina also spoke about the urgent and timely need for a strong replenishment of the African Development Fund – the Bank Group’s concessional lending arm that supports low-income African countries.
He said the Fund has connected 15.5 million people to electricity and supported 74 million people with improved agriculture; it has provided 50 million people with access to transport; built 8,700 kilometers of roads; and provided 42 million people with upgraded water and sanitation facilities.
He explained that the African Development Bank, together with its partner the Global Center for Adaptation, was mobilising $25 billion to support climate adaptation in Africa.
The AfDB President also highlighted the importance of the technology sector as a driver for growth in Africa, and prospects for young people on the continent.
He described Africa’s youth as one of its greatest assets and lauded the contributions of young entrepreneurs in the fintech, digital, creative arts and entertainment industries.
He said the need by young entrepreneurs for innovative financing is why the Bank is exploring with stakeholders the establishment of specialised youth entrepreneurship investment banks to unlock potential and economic growth.
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