ABIDJAN — Mr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), emphasized the critical need for visionary leaders dedicated to strategic solutions and transformational changes in the world.

According to Burkina Information Agency, during a presentation to religious leaders on food security and financial sustainability in Africa, Mr. Adesina highlighted the urgent need for leaders who are not only visionary and passionate but also capable of effecting strategic and transformative changes. He discussed the AfDB's ambitious $25 billion initiative aimed at revolutionizing African agriculture by equipping 40 million farmers with advanced agricultural technologies and achieving food self-sufficiency for the continent by 2030.

Mr. Adesina cited successful examples from the AfDB's Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, such as helping Ethiopia become a net exporter of wheat in just five years and significantly boosting wheat production in Sudan. He also detailed collaborations in Nigeria with the Islamic Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which have collectively invested $520 million to create special agro-industrial processing zones. These zones are designed to encourage private industrial enterprises to process and add value to agricultural products.

Furthermore, Mr. Adesina mentioned a $134 million investment in Nigeria aimed at bolstering emergency food production to combat food price inflation by enhancing local wheat and cassava output under the National Agricultural Growth Program. He urged the Nigerian government to capitalize on these investments to achieve food self-sufficiency and encouraged private sector participation in agro-industrial initiatives.

To extend Africa's reach in global agricultural value chains, the AfDB, with its partners, is facilitating the development of 28 Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs) across 11 countries, securing $4.5 billion in funding thus far. Mr. Adesina, a former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and Vice-President of the Alliance for Green Agriculture in Africa (AGRA), expressed his optimism about Africa’s potential to become a central pivot in the global agricultural landscape.