AfDB Reaffirms Commitment to Food Security

President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has reaffirmed the commitment of the bank to enhance measures geared towards ensuring food security.

Adesina gave this assurance while highlighting some take-aways from AfDB’s 2023 Annual Meetings in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. He said the board of directors, while commending the bank’s efforts in the past year, urged it to climate proof agriculture on the African continent and ensure food security.

In his words: “In Europe, America and other developing countries, farmers have the insurance against hale, flood, disasters, they call it disaster payment.Our farmers have nothing. “Therefore, we must climate proof agriculture and provide quality climate resilient agriculture technologies for our farmers. We must scale up access to crop insurance, livestock insurance “It should not be because it did not rain then the livelihoods of farmers are all gone. so we were asked to do a lot in this area and we certainly will.”

The AFDB president said the bank was asked to do more on the issue of water security. He then commended the Government of Egypt for its outstanding work in this area. “What you (Egypt government) are doing in your project for the nexus of water energy and food is good. That interconnectedness is very important “So the AfDB will do a lot more in terms of water, how we harvest, store, manage water basins and also trans-boundary water resources on the continent,’’ he stressed.

Adesina, while speaking on pandemics, said the bank was asked to do more especially on pharmaceuticals, adding that the bank had already introduced the Africa Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation in that regard.

Agronews/S.S