Participants at the 2020 African Economic Congress have recommended that African leaders must take up the challenge to invest in the agricultural sector, saying it holds the key to Africa’s transformation.
This was made known in a release of the observations and recommendations reached at the AEC event for the continent’s Post COVID-19 Economic Recovery signed by the AEC founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nancy Nnaji.
The event which was the 2nd Edition of the annual 3-day African Economic Congress organized by the African Economic and Investment held virtually in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja had in attendance , Africa’s visionary and innovative leaders to proffer new ideas that will transform the African economy. The meeting had the theme: “Post COVID-19: Africa in the New Economic Order”.
According to the participants, by developing the agricultural sector, abundant resources can be provided to finance the 2063 African union agenda and curb unemployment, food shortage, malnutrition and extreme poverty.
They noted that Africa’s ability to finance the 2063 agenda and also manage the Post COVID-19 recovery process largely depends on the implementation of home-grown interventions and utilization of Africa’s resources.
Some other recommendations proffered at the event include;
“The African Union Leadership needs to come up with policies and systems to guide the continent and its people to find solutions to the continent’s challenges and the development needs.
“African leaders need to take more steps to develop its youth population. By improving the learning curriculum in response to the future needs of the youth, we can forge a path for more youth representation in leadership for the future.
“Africa must move for self-reliance in the coming years. By harnessing and leveraging her abundant resources (both human and material), we can drive economic transformation and build a self-reliant continent.
“Governments should create policies with incentives and an enabling environment for the private sector to engage and invest for economic growth.
“Africans must be educated on the technical know-how to improve agriculture on the continent.
“Governments must increase the yearly allocated budget for agriculture and promote private sector engagement to avoid inadequate funding.
“To increase the level of value addition of food exports, there must be an investment in innovation and technology around local processing and infrastructure building”.
