AfDB’s Adesina, Yellen, Others to Grace Event on Financing Africa’s Agric Growth
Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja
The United States Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen; Kenyan President, William Ruto; African Development Bank (AfDB) President, Akinwumi Adesina, and Development Finance Corporation (DFC) CEO, Scott Nathan, will be among key participants at an event on financing Africa’s agricultural growth on the margins of the opening of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York, United States of America next week.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator, Samantha Power; Norwegian Minister of International Development, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, and World Economic Forum (WEF) President, Børge Brende, will host the event.
It will focus on how donor governments, development finance institutions, African governments and the private sector can catalyse action to strengthen food value chains in Africa through innovative financing, and better support for small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises.
Agricultural small and medium enterprises (agri-SMEs) are Africa’s largest employer and economic engine – and the key to transforming a largely subsistence agriculture sector into a commercially-sustainable industry that can feed the continent.
It is these agri-SMEs that provide 95 per cent of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa with access to seeds and fertilizer, provide extension services and training, offer transport for crops to reach markets, process harvests and market and distribute goods.
Yet three out four agri-SMEs can’t access formal bank finance, and are too large for microfinance, creating an estimated $100 billion gap in unmet demand for financing.
Heads of State and Governments will gather at the UN Headquarters in New York between September 18 and 19 to review the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provide high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to the target year of 2030 for achieving the goals.
