On May 7, Anzetse Were participated in The Africa Roundtable N°6 titled 'Growing Africa’s Future: Advancing Food Sovereignty through Agricultural Innovation'. The Africa Roundtable is a high-level discussion curated by the Global Perspectives Initiative at the Global Solutions Initiative Summit. The discussion focused on developments in ag-tech, partnership-based approaches, and opportunities for the private sector while considering existing challenges.
Speakers and participants in the roundtable included Amani Abou-Zeid, Commissioner for Infrastructure, Energy & Digitalisation, African Union; Amadou Hott, Special Envoy of the President, African Development Bank; Anna-Sophie Herken, Managing Director, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ); Nathalie Delapalme, CEO, Mo Ibrahim Foundation; and Birgit Pickel, Director-General, Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ).
Anzetse highlighted the link between the impacts of climate change on agriculture and public finance (fiscal and monetary policy), particularly how extreme weather events interfere with food and agriculture commodity production, lower agricultural commodity export receipts, increase food inflation, and increase expenditure on food imports.
(source: Were et. al, 'Debt Distress and Climate-Resilient Development in Sub-Saharan Africa', DRGR, 2023)
She also outlined the opportunity to create new business models in global value chains that improve the position of and value earned by African farmers while updating corporate business models to be more sustainable and inclusive. Such partnerships presents a real opportunity between Africa and Europe towards leveraging Africa's young labour force, investment in ancillary infrastructure such as energy and water, and building out Africa's green agro-industry towards a shared vision of the new economies Africans are building on the continent.
Read the Discussion Paper for The Africa Roundtable published by Global Perspectives Initiative and authored by Future Africa Consulting
All photos and video (c) Global Perspectives Initiative
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