AfDB celebrates young African agripreneurs at India Annual Meetings

African Development Bank (AfDB) has said it intends to bring together African heads of state to discuss young Africans in agriculture at its 2017 Annual Meetings between May 22 and 26 in India.
 
Akinwumi Adesina
President of the African Development Bank
The session will focus on Africa is Cool: Engaging Africa’s Youth and draw from the central theme of the meetings: Transforming Agriculture for Wealth Creation in Africa.

The agriculture sector holds the potential to create gainful job and wealth creation for Africa’s young people.

Africa is hoping to feed itself and to eradicate malnutrition by 2025 but the average age of farmers on the continent is currently 60 years.

“There are opportunities to empower the youth at each stage of the agricultural value chain as ‘agripreneurs.  Young people are doing new and amazing things in the agricultural space all over the continent but need to be motivated,” says Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank.

To encourage young people to take interest in the sector, the Bank and its partners have also instituted the Agri-Pitch Entrepreneurship competition.  African youth (aged 18 to 35) are eligible to participate and to pitch their innovations.

A call for business ideas has been launched and the top three (competitors will be invited to the meetings to present their proposal and receive an award. In partnership with the African Development Institute, AfDB will send the winners to Korea for a study visit.

“Already, we are seeing some brilliant ideas from Agripreneurs:  for example, promoting remote control mechanisms like GPS or drones to monitor crop health and forecast yields, and developing applications that allow farmers to sell their products at a market price through mobile phones,” says Adesina.

The AfDB President looks forward to the selection of the top three candidates that will emerge from the AgriPitch competition and to welcome them in Hyderabad in India in May 2017.

Working with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, AfDB is also empowering young farmers under The Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment (ENABLE) youth programme.

ENABLE has proven that with greater access to the agribusiness enterprise, the youth can be the driving force for the transformation of Africa’s agriculture.

The India meeting will showcase some bright young African Agripreneurs who have proven that with greater access to the agribusiness enterprise, the youth can be the driving force of Africa’s agriculture.


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