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AGRA @ the 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

23-26 January 2018. Davos, Switzerland. 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

Agnes Kalibata, the president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa attended the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting several times.

  • AGRA will be focusing in the future on helping to strengthen country capacity to work with the private sector, find investment opportunities and improve leadership around key agriculture issues.
  • The continent needs to build the right institutions and systems to deliver for farmers, from fertilizer and input access, to building market access. AGRA will be working to help build better systems, support the government to provide better agriculture leaderships and strengthen partnerships with the private sector and others who want to invest in agriculture on the continent.
  • AGRA, which has worked in the past largely on improving technical capacity and research, will now focus more on building the systems that allow technology to scale fast.
Davos was an opportunity to help make connections and for government leaders in Africa to make the case for investing in their countries and reassure potential companies or investors that it is a stable environment and share country plans with them.

I don’t get a sense that people are put under pressure to track what they say and what they do. WEF would do well to have a better mechanism to track commitments and encourage people not to say the same thing every year and talk about progress without making significant strides towards it. (…) Greater accountability mechanisms could help, but so could a better understanding between political leaders and business leaders on how to engage. That would help improve the conversations around the three key issues of climate, youth employment, and private sector engagement.

She pointed to the example of the New Vision for Agriculture, launched in 2009 by World Economic Forum partners to build partnerships and bring in investment to sustainable agriculture to address food security, and improve environmental sustainability and economic opportunity. Among the partnerships eventually launched in 21 countries was Grow Africa, which was founded in 2011 by WEF, the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. The efforts were reported to have mobilized more than $10.5 billion in investment commitments. Less than $2.5 billion has actually been deployed, Kalibata said.
Reference:

Devex 22/01/2018 Davos agenda should include climate, youth, private sector engagement, AGRA chief says

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Source: PAEPARD FEED