Over US $17billion in financing has been pledged by a coalition of multilateral development banks and development partners to address rising hunger on the African continent, and to improve food security.
These funds were pledged on the final day of a two-day high-level dialogue called Feeding Africa: leadership to scale up successful innovations. Seventeen African heads of state signed on to the commitment to boost agricultural production by doubling current productivity levels through the scaling up of agro-technologies.
African Development Bank and the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) hosted the event in partnership with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the CGIAR System Organization.
Promoting agricultural research and development
The funds will be invested in access to markets, and promoting agricultural research and development. Of the overall amount pledged, more than US $10 billion came from The African Development Bank, which said it would invest US $1.57 billion on scaling up 10 selected priority commodities over the next five years. This will help countries achieve self-sufficiency. Another $8.83 billion will go towards building strong value chains for these commodities over the next five years. This will include programs to create opportunities for young people particularly women.
IFAD aims to provide an additional US $1.5 billion to support national efforts to transform food and agricultural systems in Africa over the next three years.
Pre-conditions for increased agricultural productivity
IFAD will also invest more in creating the pre-conditions for increased agricultural productivity. The organization is helping to develop a growing pipeline of investments to restore land, create jobs and build resilience to climate change in the Sahel region. This will contribute to the Green Great Wall objectives, and will create 10 million jobs in the region by 2030.
The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), committed up to US $1.5 billion over the period 2020-2024 in agriculture, while the Islamic Development Bank Group said it would earmark US $3.5 billion to develop the agriculture sector in Africa in the next three years. These investments will develop commodity value chains for both staple food and cash crops.
Moreover, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, joining a coalition of development partners, declared that it will invest US $652 million in the next three years. This will be used support agricultural research and development initiatives in Africa.
