The African Development Bank and FAO on Monday agreed to raise up to 100 million dollars over five years to support partnerships to catalyse agricultural investment in Africa, end hunger and malnutrition and lift millions from poverty across the continent.
"FAO and the AfDB are deepening and broadening our partnership to assist African countries achieve the sustainable development goals," said FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva in Rome, where he and AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina signed the joint accord.
"Leveraging investments in agriculture, including from the private sector, is key to lift millions of people from hunger and poverty in Africa and to ensure that enough food is produced and that enough rural jobs are created for the continent's growing population," he said.
The new strategic alliance seeks to enhance the quality and impact of investment in food security, nutrition, social protection, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development, FAO said in a statement.
Adesina called the agreement a "milestone moment" in relations between the AfDB and FAO that will help achieve the goal of making Africa a business.
"The signing of this supplementary agreement is a milestone moment in the relationship between the African Development Bank and FAO. It signals our joint commitment to accelerate the delivery of high quality programs and increased investment for public-private-partnerships in Africa's agriculture sector," Adesina stated.
" This will help us achieve the vision of making agriculture a business, as enshrined in the Bank's Feed Africa strategy."
The AfDB's Feed Africa strategy, launched in 2015, aims to invest 24 billion dollars into African agriculture over a ten-year period. Its goal is to improve agricultural policies, markets, infrastructure and institutions to ensure that agricultural value chains are well developed and that improved technologies are made available to reach several millions farmers, according to FAO.
FAO said its technical assistance would cover areas such as sustainable agricultural intensification and diversification, scaling up value chain innovations, youth in agriculture and agribusiness, agricultural statistics, climate smart agriculture, blue growth/blue economy, food security and nutrition, agri-food system, food safety and standards, women's economic empowerment, promotion of responsible private investments, resilience and risk management and capacity building for transition states.
Recent collaboration between the AfDB and the FAO include project formulation support in Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea; technical assistance for the development of Blue economy programmes in Cote d'Ivoire, Morocco and Cape Verde, feasibility studies for agricultural transformation centres in Zambia, Tanzania and Cote d'Ivoire; and participation in the African Leaders for Nutrition initiative.
The Bank and the FAO have also contributed to a series of continental dialogues on post-harvest loss reduction, and the Great Green Wall of the Sahel and Sahara Initiative, the FAO statement said.
