FAS Pretoria staff attended the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Business Foundation (NBF) conference on June 5-6, 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference was inter alia supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The goal of the conference was to discuss innovative initiatives and private sector partnerships that are removing blockages to agricultural investment and development in sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2011, USAID established a partnership with the NBF with the objective of implementing the Removing the Barriers Program in Southern African in support of President Barack Obama’s Feed the Future food security initiative and to support USAID’s sustainable development program in partnership with the private sector. The Southern African Agricultural Development Partnership Platform (SAADPP) was the result of this partnership. The platform aims to bring the private sector together to collaborate on removing the barriers of agricultural trade and investment. SAADPP’s mission is to increase private sector involvement to foster agricultural growth and therefore reduce regional unemployment, malnourishment, poverty and hunger. The initiative addresses different challenges that the agricultural industry faces and how these challenges can be turned into opportunities for business development, entrepreneurship and integration.
Many agricultural problems were addressed and tackled by the presenters and the active audience. Land ownership, farmer coordination, and inadequate collaboration were identified as key threats to the development of the agricultural industry in sub-Saharan Africa. Unorganized small farmers, lack of access to finance, technology, and human capital are weaknesses that are currently being addressed by agribusiness development programs like the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) which was implemented by the African Union to prioritize agriculture and to trigger economic growth, create employment and eliminate hunger and poverty. SAADPP leaders from the newly established chapters in Mozambique, Zambia, and Malawi presented their achievements in the areas of regional market integration, capacity building and finding alternative ways for funding for future chapters.
In Mozambique, the platform partnered with TechnoServe to develop an initiative for farmers to be able to produce their own soyabeans by providing for tractors and other agricultural equipment. “Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica” (www.ispm.ac.mz), pioneers a young entrepreneurship program where agricultural development students supported by universities and private sector funding are able to start their own farming business. The Institute not only teaches students how to work the fields, but informs them about supply chain management and business development. The school also formed partnerships with private companies to allow students the opportunity to do internships.
“Mozambique understands that the future of agricultural development and reform is in the hands of the youth,” the Deputy Director of the “Instituto Superior Politécnico de Manica” Angela Manjichi stated.
The SAADPP chapter in Zambia has developed a sustainability program that aims at identifying potential donors and investors to fund local activities, and private and public institutions to join in partnerships in order to achieve targets of advancement. In Malawi, the chapter has engaged with the New G8 Alliance on Food Security that looks at attracting investments for agricultural development.
The conference concluded that access to regional markets is the only way in which agricultural development can progress, and that agricultural policies need to be pro-transformative because the core challenges to development are the lack of political will in agricultural policy reform. There also has to be an emphasis in capacity and infrastructural upgrades. “Agricultural development in Africa can bloom
if the public and private sectors unite locally, regionally and continentally and put efforts into leveraging innovative agribusiness partnerships to remove barriers in agriculture,” highlighted Lynette Chen, CEO of the NEPAD Business Foundation.
