Category Archives: Ghana

10 Points from AfDB 2022 in Accra

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group held its 2022 series of annual meetings in May in Accra, Ghana with the theme of achieving climate resilience and a just energy transition for Africa.

Highlights of the meetings:

  1. Food Security: Most countries in Africa are Agri-based. But going forward, they should engage in modern agriculture with technology, fertilizer & seed improvements, and not just produce, but also process and package high-value foods to quality standards that they can export. Agriculture can then bring transformation and jobs to rural areas.

Africa has 400 million hectares of savannah which, the President of the African Development Bank Group Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said, is better than Brazil’s (which is a net exporter of maize, beef, and soya) – and that for Africa to be a major player of global food, must transform its Savannah.

In six years, the Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program has provided 76 million farmers with improved agricultural technologies. In Sudan, the AfDB provided certified heat-tolerant wheat seeds that, when cultivated over 65,000 hectares, made the country self-sufficient. In Ethiopia, the country progressively increased its acreage cultivated with certified heat-tolerant seeds from 5,000 to 167,000 hectares in 2021. With the increased harvest, they expert to export 1.5 – 2 million tons to Kenya and Djibouti.

  1. Energy Transformation: Currently 85% of the bank’s energy investment are in renewable energy with plans to double funding to $25 billion by 2025. While the bank has a policy not to support any coal, as part of its climate change, they acknowledge that intermittent renewable energy sources cannot power Africa alone, and that Power must also be accessible, secure and affordable.
    • One solution for Africa is gas. Nigeria has $200 trillion worth to exploit, according to President Adesina who said that Europe, which gets 45% of its gas from Russia, should look to Africa. Other countries with gas potential are Ghana, Cote de Ivoire, Angola, and Morocco. The AfDB is assisting Mozambique with a $24 billion LNP project that may make the country the 3rd largest producer in the world.
    • Some of the renewable energy investments the bank has undertaken are the Quarzazate Solar in Morocco – the world’s largest concentrated solar farm, the 3,000 MW Benban energy in Egypt, the $20 billion Sahel 10,000MW, and the largest wind project in Africa at Lake Turkana in Kenya.
    • The bank is mobilizing $40 billion for South Africa to ease its transition from a reliance on 44,000 MW of coal toward renewable energy sources. Donors have committed $17 billion of grant financing, and concessions, that the bank will leverage to meet this gap without South Africa getting into debt. As the government plans to move to net-zero emissions, the AfDB has invested in solar (Xina and Redstone projects) and wind (Sere) and is also supporting a feed-in tariff for renewable energy.
  2. The ADF: The Bank’s African Development Fund (ADF) receives donations from regional members and has provided $45 billion to low-income countries. Nine of the ten countries that are most vulnerable to climate change are in Africa and 100% are ADF countries. As the ADF needs more resources, the Bank plans to tap the ADF’s accumulated equity of $25 billion to raise $33 billion from capital markets. This will make the future of the ADF more sustainable and member countries will enjoy lower borrowing costs.
  1. The Infrastructure Gap: Infrastructure’s share of the bank’s funding portfolio is high because infrastructure projects are capital intensive. One project showcased was the Pokuase road interchange that is part of the Accra Urban Transport Project and which now disperses traffic on four levels to help reduce transport congestion in Accra. It was funded with $84 million from the Bank and the Government of Ghana.

Also at the summit, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan received the Africa Road Builders–Babacar Ndiaye prize for 2022. In her speech, she credited her predecessors, especially President John Pombe Magufuli who was a Roads and Public Works Minister in two governments before leading the country. The AfDB in 15 years had advanced $2.1 billion for 2,315 kilometres of road on the Tanzania mainland while Zanzibar has received $113 million for 139 kilometres of roads.

  1. Climate Change: One of the themes of the 2022 meetings was “achieving climate resilience”. Climate change is an existential threat with droughts, floods, and cyclones devastating Africa and causing losses of $7-15 billion a year. Even though the continent contributes just 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, it just gets 3% of climate-related financing. Developed nations had promised to fund Africa with $100 billion to adapt to climate change but this has not materialized and the Bank now plans to mobilize $25 billion for climate adaptation through a new fund.
  1. Creative Financing: During Covid, the bank launched a $3 billion social impact bond on global capital markets and the funds went to train 130,000 health workers, provide social protection for 30 million households, and business advisory for 300,000 SMEs. The Bank now plans to use its AAA-rated balance sheet to leverage $100 billion of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) from International Monetary Fund and grow that four times.
  1. Development Financing by the AfDB can be targeted at specific areas:

• Towards Food Security: In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, food prices have gone up 30-40%, oil is 60%, and fertilizer prices tripled. So the AfDB launched a $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility to enable countries to intensify agricultural productivity and ward off the looming hunger crisis.
• For agriculture, President Adesina said the bank will allocate $1 billion to fund special agri-processing zone in rural areas of Zambia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, CIV and Senegal.
• Towards transformational infrastructure projects; the bank continues to fund ports, highways, bridges and border-crossing stations.
• Towards Youth Funding: one mechanism to help youth stop fleeing Africa will be through a youth entrepreneurship investment bank that will invest in youth business in 13 countries. The Bank is working on a mechanism to be ready after June 2022.

  1. Looming Debt: Even as African countries recovered in 2021 from Covid shocks, they face elevated debt levels and limited financial capacity that constrained further growth.

The bank has a focus on debt management of countries to improve the quality, sustainability and transparency of the debt. They will work with the World Bank, IMF and G20 nations to deal with private debt and commercial debt that now account for 44% of Africa’s debt. The Bank helped Somalia build back its debt management capacity after decades of war and negotiate debt relief with an arrears clearance plan and it now plans to l work with partners to do the same for Zimbabwe and build it back to an economic breadbasket.

  1. Rain parade: The Economist magazine dive-bombed the meetings with an article about a missing evaluator at the Bank. Later in his speech at the end of the summit, President Adesina said that a two-year external review of the Bank showed that its governance was world-class where areas of improvement were pointed out, these will be done. The joint communique at the end of the meetings mentioned the AfDB would implement the recommendations of a governance committee.
  2. Accra Image: The host nation of Ghana, celebrated 50 years since the passing of Kwame Nkrumah its founding President. It is seen as the birthplace of Africa as, in 1957 Ghana was considered the first Sub-Saharan country to achieve independence and is now a showcase for AfDB -financed projects including roads, farms and airports.

See more about the last in-person annual meetings – the 2019 AM in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Picture of President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, speaking after receiving the Babacar Ndiaye prize for 2022. Courtesy of Edgar Batte. 

Next meetings: Following these first meetings since Covid, the next annual meeting will be at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt from May 23-26, 2023. The new Chairman of the Board of Governors is Tarek Amer, the Governor of the Bank of Egypt. The First Vice-Chairperson will be a representative of Brazil and the second one will be from Uganda.

Investing to make Africa self-sufficient in food

The ongoing war in Russia and Ukraine shows the need for countries to have excellent food security. Currently, several African countries are expected to face increasing food inflation from shortages of fertilizer and grain that are produced in the war regions, combined with rising oil prices as well as global shipment chain disruptions. Wheat prices are up 45% while fertilizer prices have also risen 300% since the conflict began.

One of the most interesting programs from the African Development Bank Group that is being showcased at the 2022 annual meetings in Accra, Ghana is an ongoing farm improvement project that links to food security and climate resilience in the production of vital cereals such as maize and soya bean and also of poultry.

The AfDB Group’s African Development Fund, which this week celebrates 50 years since its establishment, approved funding of $34.75 million towards the implementation of Ghana’s Savannah Zone Agricultural Productivity Improvement Project (SAPIP), one of whose pillars aims to provide access to agricultural finance in two ways: extending “missing middle” loans to commercial farmers, and food processors including makers of animal feed and a poultry revolving fund that finance imports to small poultry farmers. These have competitive interest rates and flexible repayments that are matched to production periods.

It includes a symbiotic relationship between larger nucleus farms and smaller out-grower farmers who previously had challenges accessing resources and inputs for intense cultivation. But now they get these from this to nucleus farms who have been supported by the AfDB to source modern farm equipment and certified seed. They then hire them out to smaller farmers and provide inputs to the out-growers and provide a ready market by buying produce from the out-growers.

in the harsh Northern regions of the country where farming capacity is underutilized and other land is degraded, conservation farming is encouraged by minimum-till cultivation and reforestation that set trees planted on boundaries and degraded farm areas to restore water and carbon levels and rebalance the environment.

Employing lessons from the Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), including improved certified seed, blended fertilizer adapted to suit local farm needs, subsidized inputs and mechanization, the TAAT program was rolled out as (TAAT-S) in the savannas regions. It started in 2018 with four commercial farmers on 87 hectares and received more funding under the Savannah Investment Program to support land development, high-quality inputs, and minimum-till cultivation of maize, soya bean, rice and other staple crops. By 2021 it had 118 farmers cultivating 13,000 hectares with further support from 30,000 smallholder out-growers who cultivate an average of 2 hectares. They now benefit from technology transfer, access to markets financial and mechanization services provided through commercial farmers in the out-grower arrangement.

Four mechanization service centres have been established in the country with a full complement of equipment for land preparation, from planting up to harvests for operations on both large and small farms. Small farmers who do well can graduate to larger farms while other specific programs target to make women and the youth become better entrepreneurs. Large farmers who participate in the scheme can, as a result of their increased acreage and yield, be able to approach financial institutions and access larger facilities such as asset finance of $200,000 – 300,000.

There’s is also the Savannah Investment Program (SIP) being implemented in nine districts of northern Ghana in which the Agriculture Ministry works with farmers to help the surrounding communities improve staple crops and animal yields to reduce grain and poultry imports. The country imports $400 million worth of poultry products a year, but the Ministry is certain the demand can be met locally if farmers’ capacity was enhanced. It has developed value chains finding buyers for the farm outputs with governments, schools, hotels and other institutional and retail buyers.

To enhance local value chains, poultry breeds are improved with exotic breeding while goats and sheep were introduced to the pastoralist communities. To improve sustainability, poultry farmers are assisted to venture into feed production, to reduce the substantial cost of animal feed.

The improvements have been achieved with a subsidy cost of about $100 million a year. But subsidies are the norm in food-producing countries in Europe and the Americas that then get to export their surplus to other nations.

The Ghana program is now a flagship of the Bank’s “Feed Africa” portfolio and a template for other African countries. The program will be rolled out to other countries including Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritania and Egypt.

Speaking ahead of the annual meetings in Accra, African Development Bank Group President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said that TAAT has delivered improved agricultural technology to 76 million farmers. The interventions have led to enhanced harvests and crop self-sufficiency in countries like Sudan and Ethiopia that received and cultivated new heat-tolerant wheat varieties.

The Bank has just announced a $1.5 billion emergency food production facility to help African countries enhance food production and mitigate disruptions from the Russian war in Ukraine. Taking on lessons from TAAT, instead of relief food distribution, which is a short-term measure, the AfDB is signaling that the continent has the resources, technology and a plan to boost production and ensure food security. It will target to deliver subsidized certified seed, technical support and extension services to over 20 million farmers.

Energy and Climate to feature at AfDB talks in Accra

The annual meetings of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) are now scheduled to take place in Accra in May 2022. Ghana’s capital has previously been expected to host the meetings last year in a physical setting, but with covid-19 still disrupting continental travel, the meetings were held virtually, for the second year in a row.

While these are is the first-in-person annual meetings since Malabo in 2019, they will be held in a hybrid format with governors representing 54 African countries and 27 other nations who oversee the African Development Bank and the African Development Fund (ADF) meeting at the Accra International Conference Centre while other participants will join in virtually. Attendees will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ADF.

The 2022 annual meetings will be hosted by the outgoing Chairperson of the Board of Governors, Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s Minister for Finance and the theme of the annual meetings is Achieving Climate Resilience and a Just Energy Transition for Africa. This is at a time when in South Africa, homes, highways, bridges have been damaged or swept away by floods and nearly 400 have died in what President Cyril Ramaphosa said was “a disaster of catastrophic proportions” while in Eastern Africa, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has warned that rains will fail for the fourth consecutive year.

 In terms of climate finance, the AfDB will support transitions to non-coal and non-nuclear projects including hydro-generation, geothermal, gas, wind, and solar – and countries will be invited to put forward bankable projects for financing to be arranged. However, with the continent still energy-starved, countries that want to pursue coal as part of their energy-mix plans, can do so but with financing from other sources. 

The meetings will have knowledge events to promote discussion of policy and development of the continent. Some will be on building digital economies,  green jobs for youth & women in post-covid Africa and supporting resilience in agri-food systems with a focus on rural economies.

Ghana connects to America with a Museum

A world-class museum will be built in Ghana to grow connections with African-Americans seeking to better understand their heritage. This came after Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo attended a signing ceremony between the W. E. B. Du Bois Museum Foundation and the Government of Ghana, in New York this week.

Dr. William Edward Du Bois, an author and civil rights pioneer was a friend of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah. He moved to Accra, where he is buried, and a memorial centre was opened in 1985. The museum trustees have decided to expand the site into a complex or living museum for scholars that will be designed by Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye. It will contain a museum, library with Du Bois’ writings and collections spanning 50 years, an auditorium, and guest house while the bungalow where Du Bois lived will be refurnished. The goal is to make Ghana the hub of pan-African research and heritage tourism

Ghana has a special connection with African-Americans who seek ways to reintegrate with or reconnect with Africa, the continent from which their ancestors descended.  12% of visitors to Ghana were from the USA and the country aims to be the preferred West African designation for North America, through heritage tours, and “back to Africa” promotions. .

Ghana dubbed 2019 the “year of return” to mark the 400th anniversary of slaves arriving in the USA. The theme of the campaign has now extended to “beyond the year of return” to encourage people in the diaspora to come and live or invest in Africa. 

AfDB 2020 annual meetings

The abbreviated annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group ended this week after just three days, a slimmed-down virtual event, compared to the meetings last year in Malabo.

The Governors of the bank, representing 54 African and 27 non-regional member countries, dealt with statutory matters and approved the accounts of the bank for 2019, and reviewed its performance and the auditor reports. The Governors also commended the bank for its measures to work through COVID and while also providing flexible support to countries through the COVID-19 Rapid Response Facility of up to $10 billion.

During the year there will be a focus on infrastructure finance and quality health care and collaboration with the African Union and regional economic blocs to fast-track the African Continental Free Trade Area which was postponed from July this year, and will now kick off on January 1, 2021. Another initiative that will be supported will be the G-20 debt relief effort, recognizing that many African countries will go in to recession for the first time in twenty-five years as they tackle lockdowns, weaker tax revenue, and increased emergency health expenses.

Annual Meeting - 2020: Best of Day 2.

The main highlight of the AfDB meetings was the election of the President, which saw Dr. Akinwumi Adesina re-elected for a second term with 100% of the delegate votes. The USA appears to have been the main opponent of his re-election, and their comments calling for the bank to ensure cost-effective management, review its use of resources and strengthen oversight & governance were contained in the final communiqué released by the Bank at the end of the meetings.

The next AfDB Annual Meetings are planned to take place in May 2021 in Accra Ghana. They will be hosted by the new Chairperson of the Bank, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s Minister for Finance who took over from Ms Niale Kaba, the Côte d’Ivoire Minister of Planning & Development after she stepped down at the end of her term this week.

Swearing in Ceremony of President, Akinwumi Adesina elect.

EDIT September 1: Dr. Akinwumi Adesina was sworn in to start his second term as President of the African Development Bank Group.