“The agriculture sector is among the most vulnerable. Agriculture is important not only for food security issues but also for inter-regional food integration,” African Development Bank Director of Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research, Hanan Morsy, said during a news conference on the opening day of the African Economic Conference 2020.
AfDB said it had provided much-needed financial and technical assistance to the sector, including small-scale agribusinesses.
In June 2020, the bank launched the Feed Africa Response to COVID-19, a strategic roadmap to safeguard food security against the pandemic’s impact by supporting agriculture and creating regional food self-sufficiency.
The three-day annual conference, which opened Tuesday was hosted virtually. It is being organised by the Economic Commission for Africa, AfDB, and the United Nations Development Programme.
Earlier, during a high-level panel session, ‘Africa beyond COVID-19: How to move towards inclusive and sustainable development,’ participants proposed tapping renewable sources of energy, adopting new technologies, and leveraging the African Free Trade Agreement as some of the ways African countries are working to build back better from the COVID-19 crisis.
Members of the panel and Chief Executive Officer of Open Government Partnership, Sanjay Pradhan, said, “We are seeing a catastrophic health crisis, a devastating economic crisis, a climate crisis that is ravaging communities, a crisis of inequality laid bare by the pandemic and a crisis of democracy reflecting citizens eroding trust in their governments. No single stakeholder group can tackle these crises on its own.”
Some key areas of intervention emerged, including the importance of addressing the needs of the informal sector and extending social protection to the most vulnerable in society.
