Health

Germany’s 60-year old man gets 90 COVID-19 jabs to sell vaccination certificates

Angella Semu

MAGDEBURG-(MaraviPost)- A 60-year-old man is under investigation after he allegedly vaccinated himself against Covid-19 90 times to sell the vaccination cards.

The criminal police in the country confirmed the news adding that the suspect was caught at a vaccination center in Eilenburg in Saxony when he showed up for a COVID-19 shot for the second day in a row.

He allegedly had been received the shots at vaccination centers in the eastern state of Saxony several months before Police apprehended him, Independent reported.

Police also said they confiscated several blank vaccination cards from him and he is currently under investigation for unauthorized issuance of vaccination cards and document forgery.

The impact of the 90 shots on the man’s health is still unknown.

German police have conducted many raids in connection with forgery of vaccination passports in recent months.

Despite the rising figures in COVID-19 cases in the country, many measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have been put to stop.

On Sunday, the country’s disease control agency reported 74,053 new COVID-19 infections in one day, while less than a week ago it reported 111,224 daily infections.

Overall, Germany has registered 130,029 COVID-19 deaths.

Agriculture, Law and order, Malawi

Malawi Parliament passes Seed bill tp contain counterfeit products

Maravi Post Reporter

By Dorica Mtenje

LILONGWE (MaraviPost)-Malawi Parliament on Monday, April 4, 2022 passed seed bill which will help to curb the illegal seed supply in the country.

The bill was presented on Monday in the august house by the Vice Chairperson for legal affairs and agriculture committee ,Macdowel Mkandawire.

In his remarks ,Mkandawire said said the bill will help farmers to to get good seeds.

He said people in the villages have been complaining of buying fake seeds which lead to decrease in yielding.

The passing of the bill comes barely months after President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse government failed to access Affordable Inputs Program (AIP) in time due to the supply of fake seeds by transporters.

Lifestyle

Rwanda: Rusesabagina 25 year sentence upheld, prosecution appeal for life sentence rejected

Maravi Post Reporter

Rwanda’s Court of Appeal on Monday upheld a 25-year prison term against “Hotel Rwanda” hero Paul Rusesabagina, who was convicted last year on charges of “terrorism”, rejecting a prosecution appeal to increase the penalty to life.

The court gave the ruling arguing that the “Hotel Rwanda” hero was a first-time offender, and 25 years sentence was in accordance with the weight of his crimes.

“The claim that Rusesabagina Paul confessed on charges and therefore can get reduced sentence is not valid, but since he is a first-time offender, the court finds that his sentence should not be increased, because the 25 years he was given is in accordance with the weight of his crimes, and the court maintains his sentence.” Francois Regis Rukundakuvuga, Chief Judge at the Kigali Court of Appeal said.

The former hotel manager was not in court on Monday during the ruling.

Earlier in the day and before the verdict, public prosecutor Jean Pierre Habarurema said “Given the significance of the charges of which Rusesabagina was convicted and the impact of those crimes on people and their assets, he should not be given a lenient sentence. He should be given life imprisonment,”

Paul Rusessabagina had worked as the manager of a hotel in Kigali and helped shelter Hutu and Tutsi refugees there during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

He was accused of supporting the National Liberation Front (FLN) an armed wing of his opposition political platform Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), with the group claiming some responsibility for attacks in 2018 and 2019 in which nine Rwandans died. But Rusesabagina denies responsibility.

The 67 year old was arrested in August 2020 after what he described as a kidnapping from Dubai by Rwandan authorities.

Source: Africanews

Lifestyle

Mozambique: Portuguese project promotes protection for displaced children

Maravi Post Reporter

Children and young people displaced by the war in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique are expected to benefit this year from community social protection networks that the Portuguese organisation Helpo is creating on the ground.

They are part of around 25,600 people displaced by the war in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique.

“These networks aim to give more support to children and young people, but also to their families, so that they can integrate and rebuild their lives,” said Carolina Reis, manager of the initiative that the non-governmental development organisation is launching in the villages of Mieze, near the provincial capital Pemba.

Most of the beneficiaries expected to be reached are children: around 19,500.

The Nets for Protection project works by bringing together people from each community who will be alert to vulnerabilities, abuses and cases of exploitation, among other problems, in coordination with institutional actors and local leaders.

This is a “closer look” at displaced children, an extra attention justified by the specific context of flight from violence: “they have left their homes, lost family members and have their basic living conditions jeopardised”, added Carolina Reis.

“Each network has a representative who will go to Mieze once a month”, for a general meeting of the 14 communities and institutions, such as the local administration, police or other authorities, to discuss the situations detected and find solutions.

The emergency school fund, Helps says will be one of the visible aspects of the project, aimed at the most vulnerable families among the displaced and who leave most children out of school.

“The fund can cover 3,000 children in the 14 communities”, based on the initial amount. “Other support may come later” and the number may grow, stressed the manager of the initiative.

The inability to buy school materials and uniforms are two difficulties already identified by the 11 project activists in the communities – although the directors of the 16 schools involved have already announced that displaced children do not need to wear the traditional uniform to attend classes.

“Sometimes, what happens is that families are unable to pay” even the minimum expenses, “because the number of children is large, and so some are left without entering”, he said – with each Mozambican woman having, on average, five children.

Expenses that can also be for travelling to school or food, high costs, whatever the cost, for those who have lost everything.

This is where the school emergency fund should come into play.

For the time being, surveys are underway to define criteria that will allow, afterwards, within the protection networks, to choose which families will benefit from the support in each community.

The fund will be used to support school attendance from grade 1 to 12.

Helpo’s initiative is also providing initial training in psychology so that each community can be alert to signs of trauma among displaced children.

The idea is to “enable the communities to give some kind of support, a kind of psychological first-aid”, in case of problems that a child might present, and then direct them to the appropriate services.

The “Redes para a Proteção” project is supported by Portuguese cooperation through the Camões institute, as well as by Mozambikes and the Galp Foundation, with a total budget of around 180 thousand euros for one year – from January to December 2022.

The initiative comes in the wake of another Helpo action in Pemba, the Karibu project, an initiative for the integration of displaced persons in a school environment.

Two blocks of three classrooms each were inaugurated in February in the complete primary schools of Mahate and Sao Carlos Lwanga, Under Karibu.

Since 2017, the natural gas rich Cabo Delgado province has been the center of attacks by the Islamic State

There are 784,000 internally displaced people due to the conflict, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and about 4,000 deaths.

Source: Africanews

Business, Development

African Development Bank and partner Islamic Development Bank highlight benefits of nature-based approaches to climate change

Maravi Post Reporter

The African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank have expressed a commitment to integrate natural solutions into their investments to strengthen climate adaptation and mitigation.

The two development banks co-hosted a live discussion on the topic on the side-lines of the inaugural Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Climate Week, which was held in Dubai from 28-31 March. The four-day meetings, taking place in a hybrid format, aimed to accelerate collaboration and integrate climate action into the global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The event addressed both nature-based and derived solutions.

Nature-based solutions harness the power of functioning ecosystems to benefit society and the environment. Nature-derived solutions, including wind, wave and solar energy, help fulfil low-carbon energy needs but are not based on functioning ecosystems.

“The African Development Bank is planning and implementing nature-based solutions to address both biodiversity and climate change issues with the understanding that they are closely interlinked and that actions that conserve biodiversity contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation,” said Abdourahmane Diaw, African Development Bank Officer-in-Charge, Deputy Director-General, for the North Africa Region, during the session. “Climate change risk, if not addressed, can be a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss,” he added. 

In the MENA region, the Climate Technology Fund, for which the Bank is implementing agency, has committed $750 million to support the deployment of 1 gigawatt of solar power generation capacity, reducing about 1.7 million tons of CO2 per year from the energy sectors of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, Diaw said.

Amer Bukvic, Acting Director General for Global Practices and Partnership at the Islamic Development Bank, stressed the importance of the two institutions’ partnership: “We have joint programs with the African Development Bank on climate-smart agriculture, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa. We recognize that, without partnerships, we have no substantial chance of succeeding in our ambitions.”

Bukvic added that a huge investment was needed. “The estimated requirement is $8.3 trillion to meet the climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets of the three Rio Conventions by 2050.”

The MENA region is a climate change hot spot. Twelve out of the 17 most water-stressed countries globally are in the region, and climate change is expected to exacerbate arid conditions. The region is also projected to experience the greatest economic losses from climate-related water scarcity, estimated at 6% to 14% of GDP by 2050.

The Bank in October 2021 approved a Strategic Framework on Climate Change and Green Growth for the 2021-2030 period.

Representatives of the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture and UNICEF also participated in the webinar, which featured presentations on approaches and strategies to use nature-based and -derived solutions to drive adaptation and mitigation efforts across various sectors.

The Government of the United Arab Emirates hosted the Middle East and North Africa Climate Week, co-organized by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Program, the World Bank Group and MENA-based partners.

The African Development Bank hosted four events during the meetings, three of them with the Islamic Development Bank.
Source African Development Bank Group

Health

Almost everyone now breathing polluted air, warns WHO

Maravi Post Reporter

Noting that fossil fuels are responsible for most of the harmful emissions that are linked to acute and chronic sickness, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for tangible steps to curb their use.

The UN agency also urged more governments to take note that it has made significant revisions to its air quality indicators, including for particulate matter – known as PM2.5 – that can enter the bloodstream, along with nitrogen dioxide (NO2), another common urban pollutant and precursor of particulate matter and ozone.

Lower level

“It has been recognised that air pollution has an impact at a much lower level than previously thought,” said Dr. Sophie Gumy, Technical Officer at WHO’s Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health.

“So, with all the new evidence that has come up over the last 15 years since the last WHO air quality guideline update, most of the values of the guidelines levels have been reduced. So (for) particulate matter it has been reduced by two, and for nitrogen dioxide it has been reduced by four.”

According to the WHO, low and middle-income countries still experience greater exposure to unhealthy levels of particulate matter compared to the global average, but nitrogen dioxide patterns “are different, showing less difference between high and low and middle-income countries”.

Invisible danger

The agency’s data indicates that 4.2 million people die from exposure to outdoor air pollution, in addition to the 3.8 million whose deaths are linked to household smoke produced by dirty stoves and fuels.

And based on WHO’s mathematical modelling of available air pollution data from 80 per cent of the world’s urban areas, it indicates that almost every one of us faces an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, lung disease, cancer and pneumonia.

As depressing and as dangerous as this situation is, the UN health agency insists that momentum has been growing for better air quality everywhere in the last decade.

Proof of this is the fact that more than 6,000 cities in 117 countries now monitor air quality, compared to 1,100 cities in 91 countries a decade ago.

<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–> Smog fills the skyline of the city of Toronto, Canada. © Unsplash/Kristen Morith

Smog fills the skyline of the city of Toronto, Canada.

Achieving cleaner air is also one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and an increasing number of UN agencies have passed resolutions urging Member States to address the health impacts of smog-filled air.

Welcoming the increasing number of cities that have begun to measure air quality for the first time, Dr. Maria Neira, Director, WHO Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, said that it was particularly significant that data is also being gathered on nitrogen dioxide.

NO2 “is a proxy indicator for traffic and it’s telling us what is happening at urban level and how this gas that we know that is so damaging and causing so many of respiratory diseases – one of them being asthma – is increasing in many cities around the world.”

Despite this progress, “the bad news is that we still have a majority of cities who do not comply with the air quality guidelines,” said Dr. Gumy. “The people living in them are still breathing unhealthy levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, with people in low and middle-income countries suffering the highest exposures.”

Hot data

Released ahead of World Health Day on 7 April, the 2022 update of the World Health Organization’s air quality database includes for the first time ground measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter with diameters equal or smaller than 10 microns (PM10) or 2.5 microns (PM2.5).  Both groups of pollutants originate mainly from human activities related to fossil fuel combustion.

The new air quality database is the most extensive yet in its coverage of air pollution exposure on the ground, WHO says.  Some 2,000 more cities/human settlements now record ground monitoring data for particulate matter, PM10 and/or PM2.5, than the last update. This marks an almost six-fold rise in reporting since the database launched in 2011.
UN Health News

Opinion

Top Ten Things Atiku Forgot In Aso Rock By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

Maravi Post Reporter

Amongst all those running for president in Nigeria’s 2023 election, only Atiku Abubakar is running to retrieve some things he forgot in Aso Rock since he left the seat of government in 2007. For those who had not come of age then, Atiku was Olusegun Obasanjo’s Vice President from 1999 to 2007. During this period, Atiku accomplished a lot. He was so powerful that in 2003, Atiku made President Olusegun Obasanjo kneel and beg just to be allowed to run for a second term. 
Atiku and his group had wanted to “ambode” Obasanjo before Bola Tinubu even dreamed of it. But after the Ogun-State-born retired general knelt and begged, Atiku relented and allowed Obasanjo to go for a second time. At the end of Obasanjo’s second term, just after Obasanjo’s Third Term effort failed, Obasanjo called Atiku a thief and swore that he would never be alive and see Atiku as the president of Nigeria.
That was how Obasanjo sidelined Atiku and handpicked Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to succeed him in 2007. Since then, Atiku has been trying to get back to Aso Rock. Election 2023 will be the 6th time he is putting himself out there to run for president. Not even Abraham Lincoln tried this much. All efforts to convince Atiku that there are other ways to serve Nigeria besides being president have failed.
In the past, I had told Atiku of how in 1936, Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, started the Ford Foundation with an initial gift of $25,000. The Ford family ran the foundation until the 1940s when they decided to expand it into international philanthropy. They did it by following the recommendation of the Gaither Study Committee, which wanted the foundation to dedicate itself to “the advancement of human welfare through reducing poverty and promoting democratic values, peace and educational opportunity.” Today, the foundation has a $16 billion endowment and gives out $500 million every year in grants. It has left a legacy that will endure longer than the legacy of a majority of the men that have become US presidents.
In a 2003 National Population Commission’s Demographic and Health Survey of Nigeria handed over to the then Vice President Atiku, it stated that primary school attendance in Atiku’s North-East was 49.5% for males and 39.1% for females. In the South-South, it was 83.2 % for males and 81.1% for females. At the secondary school level, North-East showed 22.9% attendance for males and 14.9% attendance for females. In the South-South, it was 51.6% for males and 51.5% for females. According to the National Population Commission, as of 2010, 31% of Nigerians between the ages of 6 to 16 have never attended primary school. 72% of children in Borno State have never attended school compared to 27% in Kwara State. In Imo State, it’s zero. In the North-East, 56.8% of females aged 5-24 never attended school. For males, it was 48.5%. With all that has happened in the last ten years, the situation now is certainly worse.



If Atiku had dedicated the last fifteen years since he left Aso Rock to solving the educational gap in his North-East alone, if he had brought together his fellow rich men and women, he would have made an impact that would be more than he would ever make as president.
I have used the lives of Ford, Gates, and others who have transformed the world through philanthropy to urge Atiku to spend the rest of his life doing good for humanity. But of course, the Waziri of Adamawa rebuffed me. It soon became apparent that Atiku forgot some critical documents or missions in Aso Rock.
Finally, I have realized the top ten things Atiku forgot in Aso Rock, for which he is determined to try for the sixth time to be president.
10. Atiku needs to use the power of the presidency to pardon former US Congressman William Jefferson of New Orleans, Louisiana, convicted and jailed for hiding $90,000 inside his deep freezer in Washington, DC. Atiku needs to pardon the man for telling the FBI in 2005 that it was necessary to give Atiku $500,000 to motivate him to approve lucrative contracts to iGate and Mody’s in Nigeria.
9. Atiku must get into Aso Rock and retrieve his British Cameroon birth certificate that he hid inside a wall in Aso Rock.
8. As president, Atiku wants to proclaim as a historical landmark the jail where his father spent a few days because he preferred to send Atiku to Quranic school and to rear cattle and work on the farm instead of sending him to school.
7. On January 30, 2019, Atiku declared that he would grant amnesty to looters. For him, it is a long-cherished dream. The only way he can make it a reality is to become president.
6. When Atiku set up the Nigerian Container Services (NICOTES) while still working as a customs officer in the same port, Queen Elizabeth of Borgu gave him a Conflict of Interest Immunity Certificate. That certificate is buried inside the foundation of Olusegun Obasanjo’s Presidential Library. As president, Atiku plans to order the digging up of that valuable certificate.
5. It is Atiku’s long-term plan to build a tombstone on the spot where he buried the papers of Nigeria’s publicly owned companies that he sold at give-away prices to friends and families when he was the head of the National Council on Privatization. Only President Atiku will do us all that honor.
4. Atiku’s 1965 grade three West African School Certificate disappeared in Aso Rock the day he showed it to President Obasanjo to prove to the man that, unlike Bola Tinubu, his certificates were real and intact. President Atiku will deploy the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps to find it.
3. When Atiku relinquished the title of Turaki of Adamawa to his son and accepted the enhanced Waziri of Adamawa, he received a special gift from Orji Uzo Kalu. The National Archives took the gift and kept it in the same place as the Quran that Shehu Shagari used during his swearing-in ceremony in 1979. Only President Atiku can declassify the gift and retrieve it from the National Archives.
2. The receipts for the $40 million that the FBI said that his then-wife, Jennifer Atiku, laundered are still hidden inside the soakaway pit of Akinola Aguda House. The operation to retrieve it requires a secret presidential directive that only President Atiku can authorize due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
1. Atiku needs to be president to retrieve from Nigeria’s FBI office the images of his forensic fingerprints and the contents of the 53 unsearched suitcases alleged stuffed with Naira notes that the Emir of Gwandu brought into Nigeria in 1984 when Buhari changed Nigeria’s currency.
 
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef”, “Children of a Retired God,” among others. 

Source saharareporters

Sports

Tracking the Frontrunners in the Race for the NBA MVP

Maravi Post Reporter
Tracking the Frontrunners in the Race for the NBA MVP

As the NBA regular season starts to enter its final stretch, this is the opportune time to check out who is leading the race to pick up the prestigious NBA MVP award for the 2021-22 season.

The NBA season is a long and arduous one, and the players who fight it out for the honor that goes with the MVP award are those who manage to make an impact from day one all the way through to the end of the season, and that’s a tough ask of anyone.

The ins and outs that are part and parcel of the NBA season make the chances of winning a lucrative bet of any kind can be very tricky indeed. You can, of course, stay on top of the latest odds from the main brands, such as from sidelines.io/nba/odds, and it helps to have a good knowledge of the game and the players who are really making a concerted impact.

The NBA MVP award race is as tight as ever, but arguably there are three genuine challengers as we move towards the end of the regular season, so let’s take a closer look at those frontrunners.

Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers)

Embiid is the big favorite right now, and it’s very much his to lose at this stage. The Cameroon-born star moved to the Wells Fargo Center at the third overall pick for the 76ers in the 2014 NBA draft. He’s suffered from injuries throughout his time in Philadelphia and missed nine games in November, but that shouldn’t affect his chances of picking up the MVP award.

He’s currently averaging 29.8 points per game, with only LeBron James ahead of him on that metric, and his efforts have catapulted the Philadelphia 76ers to the top of the Eastern Conference and in with a shot of a first NBA title in almost forty years.

Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)

The ‘Joker’ won the MVP award last season and is perhaps the only genuine rival to Embiid for this season’s trophy. There is an argument that in any other team, Jokic would be even more effective, and currently, his Nuggets team (44-31 and sixth in the Western Conference) aren’t living up to his consistent displays.

Jokic averages 33 minutes per game and averages 26.3 points per game but, of course, offers a whole bunch more than just those numbers. He sits in second place in terms of average rebounds per game and in the top ten for assists, and if Embiid wasn’t a factor, the Croatian would be picking up back-to-back MVP awards for sure.

Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)

The Greek star pretty much single-handedly took the Milwaukee Bucks to the title last season, and many would have expected the 27-year-old to struggle to hit similar heights, but he’s done a great job in maintaining similar levels.

He is third in terms of points per game, with 29.7, and once again, the Bucks are set to have a great season, chiefly because of what he offers Mike Budenholzer.

Lifestyle

Football: Aliou Cisse helping to raise African coaching standards in FIFA programme

Maravi Post Reporter

Football world governing body FIFA’s latest Coach Educators’ Development Programme has taken place in Senegal with the national side’s head coach Aliou Cisse tasked with the responsibility of helping to raise African coaching standards.

Some of the modules taught in the programme included sessions dedicated to theory, practice and reflection.

“I’m here today along with a dozen, maybe even 20 coaches. They will be the future coaches in charge of the national team. So, our role is to share with them our 17 to 20 years of experience in football as players and coaches. I think that it’s the route we need to follow, because when you have great trainers and coaches, it enhances the coaching of our youngsters, players and future professionals.” Cisse, said.

The four-day course was held at Saly in Dakar and staged jointly with the Senegal Football Federation. Grassroot coaches with a C license were mainly targeted.

FIFA has said the education programme forms a key part of its effort to improve the standard of football around the world.

Doudou Sarr, Technical Director, Louga Regional Technical Centre:

” I think it will have a much greater impact because we all come from different backgrounds. When the course is over, each one of us will have to implement the knowledge at a local level. It will also help us improve the course for future coaches.”

The Senegalese coach Cisse was joined at the event by several senior figures in African football, including Mali’s head coach Mohamed Magassouba.

“If you look at the number of foreign coaches at the 2019 AFCON compared to the 2022 AFCON, you notice that the number of homegrown coaches increased. I could mention the likes of (Mohamed) Magassouba, Kamou (Malo) of Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea’s coach (Rodolfo Bodipo), Kaba Diawara or Djamel Belmadi, just to name a few. It means that we’ve been training technicians, and skilled technicians.” Cisse stressed.

Source: Africanews

Business, Development

It's high time Africa started feeding itself in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, Dr Akinwumi Adesina tells 'The National'

Maravi Post Reporter

The sudden shortage of wheat, maize and other grains imported from Russia and Ukraine could spark civil unrest in Africa as food supply chains are tested again on the heels of a global pandemic, the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has said.

In an exclusive interview with The National, Dr Akinwumi Adesina said there is a yawning gap between the production of cereal crops and consumption of growing populations on the continent, which puts the region at risk of food insecurity and necessitates a major expansion of agricultural investments and adoption of new technologies.

“If we do not intervene now and support Africa to produce the food, we could easily be looking at a looming food crisis and a potential for civil unrest. Because when people can’t buy food, then you’re going to have a lot of civil unrest,” he said.

The International Grains Council said that Russia and Ukraine, at war since February 24, account for almost a quarter of the world’s wheat exports and one fifth of the world’s barley exports.

Since the start of February, prices of grains have jumped from anywhere between 22 per cent to 37 per cent.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says wheat alone accounts for an estimated 20 per cent of human calorie consumption, mostly in poor nations where bread is a fixture of the daily diet.

“Now, let me explain that Russia’s exports to Africa are about $4 billion a year, 90 per cent of that is actually wheat. If you take the case of Ukraine, their exports are roughly $4.5bn a year,” Dr Akinwumi Adesina told The National on the sidelines of the World Government Summit held in Dubai on March 28-30.

“Most of that is wheat and maize. Ukraine alone accounts for 31 per cent of the maize imports for the African countries,” he added.

“So, you can see that the effect on Africa is going to be very, very serious. Many countries like Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya will have a lot of problems.”

 

Averting a food crisis in Africa

Dr Adesina said the AfDB initiatives and programmes set up before the war will help to alleviate the effect on Africa, which must work tirelessly to be self-sufficient in feeding itself in the years to come.

He said the AfDB has formulated a $1bn emergency food production plan for Africa to mitigate the impact of the European war.

“We will reach 20 million farmers with technologies to produce wheat as well as rice and they will produce 30 million metric tons of food with a value of $12bn,” Dr Adesina said.

 

Drought-tolerant crops

Climate change is also aggravating food insecurity in Africa.

A third consecutive year of poor rains is posing a major threat to food security in countries already facing natural resource limitations, conflict, the Covid-19 pandemic and locust swarms.

This makes adequate assistance from the AFDB and major international institutions more urgent, says Dr Adesina.

The former minister of agriculture and rural development in Nigeria says the AfDB has incorporated biotechnology in Africa to help countries fight climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and soil degradation to increase crop production.

“For the last five years, we’ve been running a programme called the Feed Africa Strategy. At the core of that strategy is what is called technologies for African agricultural transformation.

“It’s a platform that brings together the best of technologies from the global agricultural research centres and the private sector.

“In just two seasons in 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic, we have been able to supply 12 million farmers with drought tolerant wheat, maize, rice and soybeans.”

Biotechnology is widely used to develop new strains of corn and other crops that can thrive when water is in short supply, as environmentalists predict a global trend of worsening drought and hotter temperatures, with Africa and Middle East countries taking the brunt.

 

Bankable Africa

Dr Adesina says Africa can offer enormous economic potential and growth, as it’s open to all investors from around the world.

He says there’s no better region to accelerate and boost foreign investments.

“In 2018, 2019 and 2022, in those three years, we were able to attract investment commitments to Africa amounting to $110bn dollars. That is incredible. In 2018, when we started the campaign to attract investors, we got $38.7bn in less than 72 hours. The following year, we did $40.1bn in less than 72 hours as well.”

During his visit to the UAE, Dr Adesina met Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Deputy Ruler of Dubai.

He also met Ahmed Saeed Al Calily, CEO and Chief Strategy and Risk Officer of Mubadala Investment Company, Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment arm. They discussed potential investment partnership opportunities in Africa.

Dr Adesina further signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Abu Dhabi Fund for Development aimed at strengthening investment cooperation to drive sustainable socioeconomic development.

The president of the AfDB said that last week, the AfDB secured $32.8bn in investment commitments at the three-day Africa Investment Forum held online.

The largest investor interest, he said, was $15.6bn for the Lagos-Abidjan mega motorway, connecting West Africa’s two major cities in Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

“So, that just tells you that Africa is back, given the areas where we were able to secure significant investment in infrastructure,” he said.

“We have over 500 investors from around the world. So, all that to say that Africa is bankable, when you look at the fundamentals of the population 1.3 billion people which will be same in 2050 will be bigger than China and India today.”
Source African Development Bank Group

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