HIGH-LEVEL DIALOGUE ON FEEDING AFRICA: LEADERSHIP TO SCALE UP SUCCESSFUL INNOVATIONS DECLARATION ON TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS AND PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM AFRICAN FOOD SYSTEMS 29 April 2021 1. The High-Level Virtual Dialogue on “Feeding Africa: Leadership to Scale up Successful Innovations” was hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC), the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Food And Agriculture Organization of the (FAO), Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR System) on 29 and 30 April 2021.

2. The Heads of State and Government listed below participated in the Virtual Dialogue:

- H.E. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal (Session Chairperson) - H.E. Félix Antoine Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chairperson of the African Union - H.E. João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of the Republic of Angola - H.E. Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi, President of the Republic of Botswana - H.E. Sahle-Work Zewde, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia - H.E. Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, President of Faso - H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana - H.E. Alpha Condé, President of the Republic of - His Majesty King Letsie III, Kingdom of Lesotho - H.E. Bah N'Daw, President of the Transition and Head of State of the Republic of Mali - H.E. Mohamed Bazoum, President of the Republic of Niger - H.E. , President of the Republic of Rwanda - H.E. Julius Maada Bio, President of the Republic of - H.E. Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, President of the Togolese Republic - H.E. Edgar Chagwa Lungu, President of the Republic of Zambia - H.E. Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe - H.E. Abdalla Hamdok, Prime Minister of the Republic of Sudan - H.E. Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

3. The Ministers for Finance, Planning and Economy, Agriculture and Rural Development from the following countries participated in the Dialogue: Angola, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, , Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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4. The Heads of States and Ministers are deeply concerned that, despite positive and ongoing gains in economic development in many African countries prior to 2020, the number of people experiencing hunger in Africa increased from 214 million to 246 million between 2015 and 2020. The number of malnourished (stunted and wasted) children has also continued to rise. They are concerned that this figure also continues to rise due to the combined effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, more frequent droughts and floods arising from climate change, rising fragility and conflict, and climate driven natural disasters such as the massive locust invasions in East and Southern Africa. While trillions of dollars have gone into stabilizing economies and providing access to vaccines to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, full recovery will require urgent need to reboot and boost the food and nutrition of the populations that have been severely compromised. Without food, medicines do not work, and without nutrition, vaccines are not as effective. The increasing long-term threat of hunger caused by low agricultural productivity and rapid climate change points to the need for efforts to modernize food systems to recover from the effects of COVID-19, build long-term resilience to climate change and improve food security. This will allow food producers (and other workers within food systems) to sustainably provide nutritious food for Africa’s growing population without compromising the environment and to be adequately rewarded for their work, so that they do not themselves become vulnerable to hunger.

5. The Heads of State and Ministers note that a key challenge facing Africa’s food security is the low productivity of major staple crops, which makes African agriculture uncompetitive. This leads to a third of the calories consumed on the continent being imported from outside of the continent. This in turn leads to increased vulnerabilities and fragility of Africa’s food systems due to risks from depending on external food supply chains. To address low agricultural productivity and make African agriculture competitive requires better, rapid and large-scale access of farmers - especially smallholder farmers (the majority of who are women) - to highly-productive, climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable agricultural technologies and innovations. It also calls for urgent need for increased investment in improving infrastructure to support the structural transformation of the food systems. This includes the development of Special Agro-industrial Processing zones to drive greater private sector involvement in food processing, storage and market development, and much improved transport and logistic systems to reduce food waste and expand overall competitiveness of the food system. In line with the Malabo Declaration of the African Union, additional investments in the agricultural sector – both public and private – are urgently needed to accelerate agricultural growth and end hunger in Africa by 2025.

6. The Heads of State and Ministers reaffirm their determination to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the acheivement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa and the African Union’s Agenda 2026; they welcome the initiative of the United Nations’ Secretary-General to convene a United Nations’ Food Systems Summit in 2021 with the objective of catalyzing actions to transform food systems in a way that boosts progress towards the SDGs. African leaders pledge to promote action-oriented commitments towards sustainable transformation of African food systems, to contribute to the Food Systems Summit and to the realization of the SDGs, with a view to stepping up synergies and partnerships.

7. The Heads of State and Ministers applaud the recent successes in the implementation of the African Development Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy and the rollout of the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme in raising the productivity of key commodities and enhanced efforts towards agriculture as a business. TAAT is a technology delivery platform that brings together global research and technology research systems of the CGIAR, regional and national agricultural research and innovation systems, and the private sector, to deliver appropriate technologies to farmers across the agricultural value chains.

8. The Heads of State and Ministers applaud the impressive results achieved on the ground by TAAT platform, which, in just two years, has reached farmers in 28 countries across 15 food crops, provided 11 million African farmers with climate resilient agricultural technologies, expanded food production by an additional 12 million metric tons, and saved food import worth US$814 million. They applaud IFAD’s exclusive focus on transforming agriculture, rural economies and food systems; its focus on the ‘last mile’ delivery systems for rural people; and its proven impact on the ground. Other success stories abound from development partners including the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) as well as other institutions, across a range of agricultural commodities and African countries.

9. The Heads of State and Ministers observe that for food systems to be sustainable, they must create decent livelihoods for transforming the rural economy, where a significant share of the population depend on incomes from agriculture and non-farm activities. Transforming the agricultural sector will go a long way in creating new economic opportunities and wealth for rural economies, stimulate job creation especially for the youth, and improve overall quality of life through expanded farm- and non-farm sector linkages. Urgent actions are needed to speed up the access of tens of millions of farmers to climate resilient and environmentally sustainable technologies, especially improved drought tolerant crop varieties, improved climate resilient animal breeds, and improved fingerlings, as well as the promotion of efficient land and water management, including the expansion of investments in irrigation. Scaling up proven platforms that deliver such technologies at scale to build climate resilience for millions of farmers such as the African Development Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation Program (TAAT), the Green Great Wall and IFAD’s Enhanced Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP+) will require the support of governments and development partners to achieve the needed scale for assuring food security for over 1.2 billion people in Africa.

10. The Heads of State and Ministers recognize the complementary roles that both the African Development Bank and IFAD have in enabling agricultural transformation in Africa and the importance of strengthening the partnership and collaboration between the two institutions. They call for wider and inclusive partnerships between the public and private sector, farmers and civil society, global, national and regional research and innovation systems, and development partners,

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to continue to develop and provide to farmers appropriate technologies and innovations to support their adaptation to the ravaging effects of climate change on Africa’s food systems.

11. The Heads of State and Ministers further note that the private sector has a critical role to play in disseminating productivity technologies at scale and in accelerating the African Continent’s agro-industrialization. Partnerships between development partners, governments and the private sector will be necessary to create enabling business environments that provide the private sector with incentives to generate and disseminate technologies. The terms of the new African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA) should be leveraged to expedite the movement of technologies and products across the African continent through reduced tariffs, streamlined intellectual property laws, and the harmonization of regulations.

12. The Heads of State and Government, Ministers and Development Partners attending the dialogue hereby commit to:

i. Accelerate agricultural production by doubling current agricultural productivity levels through the scaling up of existing and proven technologies, such as improved and climate resilient crop varieties, improved and climate resilient animal breeds, improved fingerlings, agricultural inputs, and support for better water management and irrigation to boost overall resilience of agriculture. ii. Increase investment in agricultural Research and Development in Regional and National Agriculture Research Centers to adapt existing technologies to growing conditions across the continent for rapid scale up of new technologies to reach millions of farmers by 2025. iii. Create an enabling policy environment for the uptake and affordability of new technologies and access to markets through policies that strengthen the infrastructure backbone of rural roads, storage, wholesale markets, upon which commodity markets depend, as well as policies that enhance agricultural logistics, national and intra-regional trade, and seed systems. iv. Support the establishment of Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones to transform the food and agriculture environment through accelerated investment in infrastructure, logistics and harmonized policies and regulations that promote agro-industrialization, food processing, value-addition and cost-competitive supply of quality and nutritious food in Africa, taking advantage of Africa’s Continental Free Trade Area. v. Advocate for greater access of African countries to more concessional financing resources to support the agricultural sector, including expanded resources for a well-coordinated global, regional and national agricultural and innovation system, access to financing for Africa’s private sector in the food and agribusiness sector, access of farmers to affordable financing, while protecting smallholder farmers and small and medium-sized enterprises in the food value chain from land speculation that could deprive them of access to land. vi. Call for a Financing Facility for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa to: (1) to scale up climate resilient and successful agricultural technologies, including digital innovations to farmers across Africa; (2) combat malnutrition and stunting in children and women.

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vii. Commit to end hunger and malnutrition in Africa over the next ten years, using the expanded resources from the proposed Financing Facility for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa, as well as coordinated financing by countries, development partners and the private sector. 13. In realization of the aforementioned commitments: a. A total of US$17.21 billion was committed by development partners to help achieve the acceleration of food and nutritional security in Africa. b. The African Development Bank declares its commitment to provide a total US$10.4 billion in support of agriculture over the next five years. The African Development Bank will invest US$ 1.57 billion on scaling up 10 selected priority commodities over the next five years towards the drive to attain self-sufficiency in the countries. In addition, the African Development Bank will invest another US$8.83 billion to build strong value chains for these commodities over the next five years, to create and expand opportunities for young people and women. c. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) declares that it aims to provide an additional US$1.5 billion to Africa to support national efforts to transform food and agricultural systems over the next three years. IFAD will also invest more in creating the pre-conditions for increased agricultural productivity. IFAD is helping to develop a growing pipeline of investments to restore land, create jobs and build resilience to climate change in the Sahel region. This will contribute towards the Green Great Wall objectives of helping to create 10 million jobs in the region by 2030. d. The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), declares that it is committed to invest up $US1.5 billion over the period 2020-2024 in agriculture. e. The Islamic Development Bank Group intends to invest US$3.5 billion in developing the agriculture sector in Africa over the next three years. These investments will develop commodity value chains for both staple food and cash crops. f. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, joining a coalition of development partners in 2019, declared that it would invest US$310 million over the next three years. This will support agriculture research and development initiatives in Africa. This funding is expected to empower 300 million farmers with a host of new innovations. g. The outcomes of this dialogue will be shared at the pre-Food Summit meeting in Rome in July 2021 and at the Food Systems Summit on the heels of the United Nations General Assembly. h. The Heads of State and Ministers endorse the outcomes of the High-Level Dialogue, call for that they be carried forward as Africa’s commitments towards the United Nations Food Systems Summit, and direct that they be communicated to the United Nations Secretary- General.

Prepared and signed virtually, this 30th day of April 2021

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