Abdelmonem Fawzi
“Africa must prepare for the inevitability of a global food crisis.”
That was what African Development Bank Group President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, told the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center about Africa’s priorities.
Adesina answered questions from a host of people, including the Council’s Africa Center Chair, Ambassador Rama Yade, Senior Fellow Aubrey Hruby, and Washington/UN correspondent for Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, Julian Pecquet.
He said with the lowest GDP growth rates, Africa had lost as many as 30 million jobs on account of the pandemic. Adesina expressed sympathy for the people of Ukraine, describing their suffering as ‘unimaginable’.
He said the war’s ramifications spread far beyond Ukraine to other parts of the world, including Africa.
Adesina explained that Russia and Ukraine supply 30% of global wheat exports, the price of which has surged by almost 50% 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 warned that the rising costs of food baskets could worsen in Africa in the coming months.
To fend off a food crisis, Adesina said,
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,” Adesina
said.
He added that his basic principle is that Africa should not be begging.
“We must solve our own challenges ourselves without depending on others,” he said.
The bank chief spoke about early successes through the bank’s innovative flagship initiative, Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme, which operates across nine food commodities in over 30 African countries.
TAAT has helped 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,” he said. “We are producing more and more of our own food.
He said the Africa Emergency Food Production Plan would produce 38 million metric tonnes of food.
The chief noted that TAAT had already delivered heat-tolerant varieties of wheat to 1.8 million farmers in seven countries.
According to Adesina, heat-tolerant varieties 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 programme to work in a 200,000-hectare lowland irrigated wheat programme, farmers are reporting yields of 4.5 to five times higher per hectare.
He noted that TAAT’s climate-smart seeds were also thriving in Sudan, which recorded its largest wheat harvest ever – 1.1 million tonnes of wheat – in the 2019-2020 season.
He added that 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 841,000 hectares.
As a result, he said, farmers survived the drought in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, allowing maize production to expand by 631,000 metric tonnes to a value of $107 million.
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 said.
He added that Africa has three lessons to learn from the challenges Africa it is facing: first, the continent could no longer leave the health security of its people to the benevolence of others. Second, it must look at health investments differently, and make the development of a health defense system a priority—investing in quality health infrastructure as a must. Third, economies – which were already turning around – must create fiscal space to deal with debt challenges.
Asked about the outcomes for Africa from the global climate summit, COP26, in Glasgow last November, and how he foresaw prospects for success at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022, Adesina expressed optimism.
He said it was important for developed countries to make good on their promise to provide Africa with the $100 billion a year, which is required for climate adaptation.
“Our challenge is adaptation, because we did not cause the problem,” Adesina said. “In Africa, we are adapting to climate change.”
He explained that the Global Center for Adaptation was mobilizing $25 billion to support climate adaptation in Africa.
He highlighted the importance of the technology sector as a driver for growth in Africa, and prospects for young people on the continent.
Adesina described Africa’s youth as ‘one of its greatest assets’.
He lauded the contributions of young entrepreneurs in the fintech, digital, creative arts and entertainment industries.
He said young entrepreneurs’ need for innovative financing is why the bank is exploring with stakeholders the establishment of specialized youth entrepreneurship investment banks to unlock potential and economic growth.