The Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department of the African Development Bank Group launched its “Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa 2016-2025” on Monday, September 19, 2016 at the AfDB headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

The objective of the launch was to present the AfDB strategy for agricultural transformation in Africa to a wide range of stakeholders on the continent.

As part of the Bank’s High 5 Agenda and the objectives of Feed Africa, the Bank adopted the “Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa 2016-2025”. The AfDB’s Feed Africa strategy has four specific goals: contribute to eliminating extreme poverty in Africa by 2025; end hunger and malnutrition in Africa by 2025; make Africa a net food exporter; and move Africa to the top of export‑orientated global value chains where it has comparative advantage.

The launch ceremony featured key statements, a presentation of the strategy and a panel discussion. An interactive session with all stakeholders will encourage a fruitful debate.

The event brought together a wide range of participants including Bank staff, AfDB Board members, public and private sector partners, representative from the Ministry of Agriculture of Côte d’Ivoire, civil society, development partners and the media.
Agricultural Transformation

+ 150m people adequately fed
+ 100m people lifted out of poverty
+ 190m hectares with restored productivity

Access to food – in quantity and quality – is a fundamental human right. It is also essential for ending hunger and malnutrition, and ensuring a healthier and productive workforce. Although agriculture employs over 60 percent of the African workforce and accounts for roughly a third of the continent’s GDP, Africa is the most food-insecure region in the world with more than 232 million under-nourished people, or approximately one in four.

Structural food insecurity is a particular challenge in fragile economies, which are disproportionately susceptible to resource and commodity price shocks and where poor agriculture infrastructure, governance and weak institutions result in low productivity and a heavy dependence on food imports. Women face systematic discrimination across the continent, for example in terms of land ownership, which severely limits their opportunities to benefit from agricultural value chains. This is further multiplied by women’s unequal access to inputs, household decision making, education, finance, and markets. FAO estimates that closing the gender gap could increase farm yields by 20-30%, and there is wide-spread evidence that closing the gender gap within households has wide-spread benefits for families.

As a result of these factors, Africa had an estimated net food import bill of US $35.4 billion in 2015, with about 15 food chains accounting for most imports, including 5 staple commodities such as wheat, sugar, rice, beef, soybeans.

Africa’s potential for agricultural production is enormous, with 60% of the world’s unused arable land. Increased food demand and changing consumption habits are leading to rapidly rising net food imports, which are expected to grow from US $35 billion in 2015 to over US $110 billion by 2025, which could be offset by increased African production. Export of primary agricultural production is still very high in Africa compared to other regions of the world. Therefore, agriculture offers a realistic prospect for large-scale job creation, especially in fragile economies. Given the importance of food and nutrition, promoting agricultural value chains and improving market access have the potential to diversify economies, raise incomes, increase food security and macroeconomic stability, contribute to mitigating conflict and prevent internal and external migration.

The Bank has developed a strategy for long-term agricultural transformation in Africa. In October 2015, the Bank organized a high-level Ministerial Conference on “Feeding Africa – An Action Plan for Transforming Agriculture in Africa” in Dakar to map out how to unlock Africa’s agricultural potential and boost job creation in view of diversifying economies. The Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA)(1) supports the realization of key Sustainable Development Goals through the development of an inclusive and competitive African agribusiness sector. Underpinning this vision are four specific goals: (i) contribute to the end of poverty; (ii) end hunger and malnutrition; (iii) make Africa a net food exporter; and (iv) move Africa to the top of export-orientated value chains where it has comparative advantage.