The Africa Development Bank (ADB) has indicated its willingness to partner with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to drive Africa’s agricultural sector transformation.
The President of ADB, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina who made this known in an address to mark the 50th Anniversary celebration of IITA at Ibadan said the bank would be investing $24 billion in agriculture over the next ten years to help turn agriculture into business across Africa.
According to him,” Our goal is to ensure that Africa feeds itself not in 30 years, not in 40 years but in 10 years and that we fully unlock the potentials of agriculture. At the core of this is getting technologies in the hands of millions of farmers. The bank has therefore developed what we call Technologies for African Agriculture Transformation otherwise TAAT together with IITA and other CGIAR centres as technology platforms to help take high yielding technologies to farmers for an Africa green revolution.
“The Africa Development Bank and World Bank expect to invest up to $800 million in TAAT which will be launched this year. IITA is also at the core of the bank’s work to develop a new generation of young agribusiness leaders for Africa, we call them the agripreneurs who are all here today.
“IITA is developing the next generation of farmers for Africa, all of them university graduates, that is highly commendable. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, IITA is an institution that is run with transparency, honesty and integrity, one that has stood the test of time. I am bound to say very loudly that I am very proud to be associated with IITA.
“Throughout my time as Minister of Agriculture, every fund we provided for this institute was very well used and properly accounted for with visible impacts everywhere. When I see that even as President of Africa Development Bank today in any institution, I will strongly support that institution for integrity and accountability are the keys to success”.
Adesina who is also Nigeria’s former Minister of Agriculture observed that IITA had contributed so much to agriculture all across Africa and of course here in Nigeria adding that “The institute developed the maize varieties that thrived on the Savannah and the humid zones, its cowpea varieties supplied the beans on the nation’s market, its soybean varieties led the soybeans revolution and its work on cassava and yam still form the core of the Nigeria’s cassava and yam value chain transformation even till today, that was why as a Minister of Agriculture had IITA at the core of our agricultural transformation agenda”.
Concluding he added,”The past fifty years of IITA has been full of successes, the next ten years will be when we will usher in the fulfillment of the dream to feed Africa and IITA’s role will be very important to our folk. I hope by the special grace of God to be back here then to celebrate its 60th anniversary and that will really be a glory moment for Africa”.
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