The African Development Bank (AfDB) has embarked on the designing of youth entrepreneurship investment banks in 13 African countries, including Nigeria, even as it disclosed that it had obtained approval from its Board of Governors to develop a Security Index Investment Bond to address insecurity in Africa.
President of the AfDB Group, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said this at a news conference to conclude the Bank’s 2022 Annual Meetings in Accra, Ghana.
Adesina said the move, to be finalised by June, would help youths get capital and create wealth for the younger generation for the development of the continent.
“We are designing renewed financial institutions that will invest into the business of the youths and Ghana is one of the benefitting countries.
”We have 13 countries and we expect to finish that design by the end of June.
”It will create youth-based wealth for the continent,” he said.
On post-harvest losses, Adesina said the Bank had invested one billion dollars in special agro-industrial processing zones to curb food losses.
He listed some countries to benefit including Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritius, and Mozambique, among others.
“These are the new investments the bank is making to be close to the areas that the farmers are producing enabled with water, infrastructure, and logistics so that the food and agriculture processing companies can be located close to the zones.
“The processing companies in most countries are not located in the rural areas because there is no infrastructure in the rural areas
“What we are trying to do with the processing zones is to reduce the cost of doing business for the food and agriculture companies, so that they can offtake from the farmers and process them there.
“We lose too much of our food and the consequence is that we start complaining about carbon emissions, producing and not having any impact and that affects the prices of food that eventually gets to the market.
“Post-harvest losses are what I can describe as pouring water into a bucket that has holes, you have to stop the leakage but in developed countries, post-harvest losses are as a result of too much food, you can’t eat it, you throw it away but in Africa, it is not like that,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that Egypt will host the next Annual Meetings of the Bank.
Mr Tarel Amer, the Governor, of the Central Bank of the Arab Republic of Egypt, was appointed the new Chairperson of the AfDB Board of Governors.
The bank also disclosed it has obtained approval from its Board of Governors to develop a Security Index Investment Bond to address insecurity in Africa.
Adesina disclosed this at a news conference to wrap up the 2022 Annual Meetings of the Bank in Accra.
Adesina said security was an issue in the continent, noting that development thrived in a secured continent.
He said that the meetings discussed the support for the private sector which he said the Bank was actively involved in with the private sector equity investments.
“Development can only happen when we have security.
“Security is now part of our thinking in the AfDB because we will support the countries to address security.
“There must be a link between security, investment, growth, and development,” he said.
He said the Bank’s meetings also focused on the debt management for Africa.
“We must have sustainable, transparent debt in Africa by ensuring that the private and commercial debt of Africa is fair.
“AfDB should do more on agriculture.
“In the meetings, we talked of the African Development Fund (ADF).
“As you know, the ADF is 50, nine out of 10 most vulnerable countries of climate change are in Africa, 100 per cent of them are ADF countries,” he added.
the African Development Bank (AfDB) has embarked on the designing of youth entrepreneurship investment banks in 13 African countries, including Nigeria, even as it disclosed that it had obtained approval from its Board of Governors to develop a Security Index Investment Bond to address insecurity in Africa.
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