• Asks Nigeria to return to electronic wallet for fertiliser distribution
• Tells African leaders there’s no pride in begging
• AfDB to spend $12b on continent’s food sufficiency programme
With 65 per cent of the global arable land and available cutting-edge technologies, Africans cannot afford to go to the rest of the world with bowls in their hands begging for food.
Rather, the continent should leverage its competitive advantages in food production to feed its citizens and emerge with a solution to the current challenges confronting the global community.
President of African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said this yesterday at a media breakfast, setting the tone for the ongoing Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the bank holding in Accra, Ghana.
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other global agencies had warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a watershed for Africa’s survival and that the imminent food crisis would hit the continent the most.
But Adesina dismissed the positions of naysayers as “noise”, suggesting that data points to the opposite.
He told a cross-section of journalists drawn from different parts of Africa and other regions that the continent “is fully ready for agriculture and food production”, unlike when it was caught unawares by COVID-19, which caused a major shock across the board. In his words: “Noise is not equal to data.”
A few participants balked at the capacity of Africa rising to the challenge of feeding itself but the host of the session said he was neither arrogant nor moonlighting on the possibilities.
He said his position is guided by: conviction that Africa has a competitive advantage in food production; his 35 years of experience in agribusiness and his willingness to provide desired leadership through AfDB.
He recalled his days as a minister in 2012, when floods swept away swathes of farmlands in Nigeria, noting that he was the only person that believed the country would not go into a food crisis. He narrated how he deployed technology to drive the first major dry season farming project in the country, leading to crash of food prices in the country and admiration from the global community.
As part of the grand plan to build an Africa that will feed itself and export its surplus, AfDB is committing $1.5 billion through its African Emergency Food Production Plan in the coming years. The amount, which is said to have secured the approval of the Board of Directors of the bank, would be leveraged eight times, bringing the total spending envelope to $12 billion.
With the plan, AfDB is looking at a benchmark of 38 million metric tonnes of food in the next few years to feed Africa.
Different countries, Adesina said, are already rising to the occasion while Ethiopia is planning to start exporting wheat soon as its production volume exceeds local consumption need.
He said Africa must rise to confront its challenge as “there is no pride in begging”, neither should poverty continue to be Africa’s “competitive advantage”.
He spoke extensively on what AfDB is doing across African countries to scale up food production while urging Nigeria to return to the electronic wallet system for direct fertiliser distribution. He warned that middlemen must necessarily be removed from the fertiliser distribution process to increase efficiency.
On climate change and energy transition – the talking points of the AGM – Adesina warned: “Climate change is killing African economies.”
In transiting to cleaner energy, he said natural gas would continue to serve as a component of Africa’s energy mix to achieve stability.
He noted: “Achieving just energy transition for Africa is important in the drive towards net-zero emissions. The African Development Bank no longer finances coal and that has now been made a formal part of our official policy.
Adesina, a firm believer in Africa rising, read out statistics on climate change and energy consumption, highlighting how skewed the data are against the continent.
He noted: “Annually, Africa loses $7-15 billion due to climate change. This is expected to rise to $50 billion a year by 2040. Africa, which accounts for just four per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions, is short-changed by climate finance. Africa’s financing needs to address climate change ranges from $1.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion in 2020-2030.
“However, Africa is not getting enough resources to tackle climate change. Africa gets only three per cent of total global climate finance. Climate financing mobilised globally falls short of Africa’s needs by $100-$127 billion per year from 2020 to 2030. As per the Paris Agreement, African countries are committed to reducing their carbon emissions, through energy transitions. Africa has abundant renewable energy resources, including solar, hydro, wind and geothermal resources.”
