Saturday 6 June 2015

African bank joins in push to encourage young farmers

KAMPALA, Uganda - The African Development Bank, Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa (FARA), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Alliance for a Green Revolution Africa (AGRA) have joined efforts to combat increasing youth unemployment in Africa through agribusiness incubation. 

The joint initiative is coordinated by African Development bank under the theme ‘Enabling Youth for employment. The purpose of the programme is to create options for youth engagement in agribusiness, increase financing mechanisms and networking opportunities for youth engagement in agribusiness, trade and investment along agriculture value chains
The vice President of Africa Development Bank (AfDB) Mr. A. Abou-Sabaa and Director Agriculture and agro industry Mr. C. Ojukwu  in a press statement said the bank’is committed  to support private sector engagement in agribusiness and their interest to explore all options for youth focused job creation in partnership with national, regional and international development partners.
FARA UniBRAIN model was identified as one of the successful agribusiness incubation models in Africa and the World with practical options for sustainability, wealth and job creation in Africa 
But the Bank called upon FARA to work closely with other partners in up scaling and sustaining the initiative in the 54 African countries under its new programme-African Agribusiness Incubation Programme (AAIP) 2016- 2020. 
FARA will work closely with African Development bank during the implementation of Agriculture and agribusiness strategy 2015 to 2019 in Africa and UniBRAIN model will leverage other continental initiatives propelling agriculture transformation forward.
“FARA will join efforts with AGRA and IITA in delivering ENABLE programme in 20 African countries. In the partnership, FARA UniBRAIN will focus on incubating incubators and linking them to African Agribusiness Incubators Network and other global platforms for mutual benefits and synergy building,” said Dr Yemi Akinbamijo the Executive Director of FARA in the statement.

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