CEM REPORT | The African Development Bank (AfDB) has announced that it is designing financial institutions that will prioritise the youth.
The President of AfDB Group, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, disclosed this at a news conference to conclude the Bank’s 2022 Annual Meetings in Accra, Ghana.
He said the initiative which Nigeria is listed to partake amongst 13 other African countries will create wealth in the continent.
He stated that the design should be finalized by the end of June adding that the financial institutions will invest into the business of the youths.
“We are designing renewed financial institutions that will invest into the business of the youths and Ghana is one of the benefitting countries.
”We have 13 countries and we expect to finish that design by the end of June. It will create youths based wealth for the continent.”
Adesina further said the bank had invested $1 billion on special agro-industrial processing zones to prevent food losses.
”The processing companies in most countries are not located in the rural areas because there are no infrastructure in the rural areas
”What we are trying to do with the processing zones is to reduce the cost of doing business for the food and agriculture companies, so that they can offtake from the farmers and process them there.
”These are the new investments the bank is making to be close to the areas that the farmers are producing enabled with water, infrastructure, logistics so that the food and agriculture processing companies can be located close to the zones.”
He listed benefiting countries to include Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritius, Mozambique, among others
He further said that post-harvest loses in Africa affects the eventually price of food available o be sold.
”We loose too much of our food and the consequence is that we start complaining about carbon emissions, producing and not having any impact and that affects the prices of food that eventually gets to the market.
”Post-harvest losses is what I can describe as pouring water into a bucket that has holes, you have to stop the leakage but in developed countries, post-harvest losses is as a result of too much food, you can’t eat it, you throw it away but in Africa, it is not like that.’’
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