African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina stressed on Thursday that the risk of dying of starvation in Africa is much higher than the risk of dying from the covid-19 pandemic.
“The covid-19 pandemic has brought chaos to Africa, with a huge impact on the continent, causing about 250 million people to go to bed hungry, and the risk of dying from hunger is much higher than the risk of dying from covid-19,” the bank’s president argued at the inaugural session of the High Level Dialogue on How to Feed Africa, which has been running since yesterday in virtual format from Abidjan.
“We have to work harder to increase agricultural production,” the banker said, pointing out that although 60 percent of the world’s arable land is in Africa, countries spend about $80 billion every year importing food from outside the continent.
“The technology exists, what we need is to increase production through an integrated approach that favors agribusiness and fosters industrialization,” Adesina added.
At the meeting co-organized with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the ADB president also said that “we also need better public policies, more access to financing, and the development of agro-industrial processing zones to give more value to food producers.”
The ADB will invest 10.4 billion dollars over the next five years to promote value chains in agricultural production and 1.6 billion dollars over the same period to support strategic crops to ensure food security on the continent, the bank’s president also noted.
