Platform to transform African agriculture launches at Paris Peace Forum

Who stands to benefit from investing in African agriculture? The continent itself is one obvious answer. But in reality, the stakes are global. A new “high level multi-stakeholder platform” aims to foster dialogue and collaboration between the global north and south in order to unlock the full potential of African agriculture — even at a time of rapid climate change. It’s called the Agricultural Transitions Lab for African Solutions, or ATLAS, and it launched Monday at the spring meetings of the Paris Peace Forum, which was held in Benguerir, Morocco. “I do not fully agree on the moral imperative where we ask the [global] north to support Africa because they destroyed the climate,” former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said during a panel at the forum. Instead, Desalegn argued, building resilient and sustainable agriculture is win-win for high- and low-income countries alike. “We are in a global village,” he said. “Whatever happens in one part of the globe has an impact on the other parts of the globe.” Improving agriculture in Africa would help address 13 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which are currently nowhere near being achieved by their target deadline of 2030. Filling the continent’s yield gaps could not only fight growing food insecurity, but make it a major agricultural power on the global scale. Of course, bolstering Africa’s agricultural productivity is easier said than done. One major setback is a lack of stakeholder cohesion — and, as Desalegn pointed out, a global north-global south binary that needs to be dissolved. ATLAS builds on a call made at the Paris Peace Forum’s annual gathering in November. Its goal is to bring together stakeholders — including international organizations, development banks, foundations, civil society and beyond — to mobilize agricultural development on the continent. Its original 15 signatories include ​​International Fund for Agricultural Development, AGRA, and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. On Monday, it was revealed that nine new signatories, including CGIAR, have since joined the list. In announcing ATLAS’ launch, Paris Peace Forum Vice President Pascal Lamy explained that the goal was to take the call from November and turn it into action, “starting from what I think we all agree on, which is that we definitely need to accelerate the African agri-food system transformation.” The platform, he said, will be built on three main pillars: aligning stakeholder visions, disseminating knowledge, and spotlighting initiatives that might otherwise go unnoticed. Still, ATLAS alone will not solve perhaps the greatest challenge to the continent’s agricultural growth: lack of financial investment. Calls to develop Africa’s agriculture have echoed for decades — for example, it has been more than 20 years since the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, or CAADP, was adopted by the African Union in 2003. And yet these efforts have fallen short: CAADP calls for 10% of public investments to go toward agriculture; so far, only four of 54 African nations have delivered on that target. When it comes to official development assistance, only 5% is spent on agriculture, and only 3% of private investment is dedicated to agrifood systems. Desalegn argued that the key to attracting investment in African agriculture is not to position it as an act of altruism, but as a profitable business decision. This would entail rethinking subsidies and incentives, implementing de-risking mechanisms, improving green infrastructure, and generally creating a policy environment not hampered by red tape. “In Africa, we have to have our own … leverage points in a proper way so that we negotiate with the [global north], rather than beg them for resources and investment because morally they are obliged,” he said. “That's not the correct way of negotiation. We have to show them that investing in Africa has benefits.” If part of Africa’s role is to create an appealing environment for investors, Lamy said, the global north needs to more freely share its technology and scientific research, like breakthroughs in agronomics, irrigation systems, and digital farming tools. He added that the onus for financing rests on both the global north and Africa itself. “If you want capitalists on this planet to invest in agriculture in Africa, which is quite an attractive proposition, you first need to show that Africans are doing it,” he said. Africa is home to 60% of the arable land on Earth, and “it's the continent where the disproportion between the reality and the potential is the greatest,” Lamy said. With enough investment and mutual cooperation by the global north and the global south, that disparity could disappear. Then, “Africa can not only feed itself, but benefit from its comparative advantage on our planet.”