The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have signed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) to expand funding to 40 million farmers and quadruple their output, capitalizing on a renewed drive to increase agriculture and agro investment.
The letter of intent, which intends to increase the organizations’ Pan-African agriculture funding campaign, was signed yesterday during the ongoing second Feed Africa Summit in Dakar, Senegal, by the presidents of the two groups, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina and Alvaro Lario.
Both leaders committed to following through on occasion with tangible initiatives that will quadruple the productivity of 40 million African farmers, resulting in the production of 100 million metric tons of food, enough to feed 200 million people.
The project comes at a time when some African countries are experiencing starvation. According to reports, over 283 million Africans go to bed hungry every day, and a World Bank analysis found that four of the ten nations with rising food costs last year were Africans. Zimbabwe was at the top of the list, with triple-digit food inflation.
The Mission 1 for 200 (M1-200) project, which complements AfDB’s Feed Africa mission, is built on the success stories of both organizations. It also emphasizes the need of developing sustainable agricultural systems and consolidates the two parties’ current commitments to boost productivity through aggressive funding programs, strong cooperation, technologies, market access, and research and development.
The MoU builds “on the strengths of the two organizations – IFAD with smallholder farmers and linking them to markets, and AfDB with Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation and the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) Initiative,” according to the concept note shared by the AfDB communications team.
Scaling and diffusion of proven food production technology, capacity development, enhancement of the local agro inputs market, and support for agricultural practices that combine productivity, sustainability, and resilience are some of the possible interventions from the collaboration.
Others are mobilizing and promoting alignments across various sources of finance/investment to attain size and sustainability, as well as supporting innovative and effective value chain business models and enhancing the regulatory environment.
Adesina described the agreement as a bold and forward-thinking step that will be accompanied by actions to realize the tremendous potential of the African agriculture industry
