Last week, the African Development Bank Group leveraged its deep expertise and convening power to highlight the crucial role of agricultural technologies, fertilizer and healthy soils in driving sustainable agricultural growth at the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit in Nairobi.
Representing Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, Dr. Beth Dunford led a delegation of agriculture, agribusiness, fertilizer and partnership specialists to the summit. The event explored solutions to widespread declines in farmland soil quality and build consensus on an African Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan. The summit also adopted an African Union Commission initiative to enhance the health and productivity of African soils.
More than 1,500 participants from across Africa, including Heads of State and Ministers attended.
Dunford spoke during a side event titled “Dakar 2 – the State of African Fertilizer and Soil Health: Policy, Governance, and Institutional Framework to Accelerate Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compacts.” Organised by the Leadership for Agriculture network, a partnership of the African Development Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, the session brought together representatives of agricultural ministries, the private sector, and other stakeholders to showcase successful efforts by Ethiopia and Mali to scale soil health interventions, raise crop productivity and bolster rural livelihoods. It advanced the implementation of Food and Agriculture Delivery Compacts to achieve food self-sufficiency born out of the Dakar 2 Feed Africa Summit held in January 2023.
Dunford also provided opening remarks at a May 7th side event jointly organized by the Bank Group, the African Union and the United States Department of State. This side event, titled, Advancing the Soil Initiative for Africa through the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils will showcase the strategic and developing relationship between the African Development Bank and the U.S.-led Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS), a movement to build resilient food systems grounded in diverse, nutritious and climate-adapted crops grown in healthy, fertile soils. VACS is aligned with the Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) initiative. TAAT delivers heat-tolerant, drought-resistant and other climate-smart certified seeds to millions of Africa’s smallholder farmers to produce 120 million additional tons of food in Africa and lift 130 million people out of poverty.
