The African Development Bank (AfDB) has stated that, with the removal of barriers to agricultural development aided by new investments, Africa’s agricultural output could increase from $280 billion per year to $1 trillion by 2030
AfDB president, Akinwumi Adesina, in a statement to herald the Dakar II summit scheduled to hold on January 25th at the Abdou Diouf International conference center in Diamniadio, Senegal’s capital city Dakar, said, this is the time to invest in Africa’s future, pointing out that, the continent has more than 60 per cent of the world’s remaining arable land, and millions of Africans are productive in the agriculture sector.
He stressed that the continent is home to a third of the world’s 850 million people living with hunger, assuring that, the Dakar II Summit will mobilise political commitment, development partner and private sector investment, establish much needed policies and strategically drive actions to deliver at scale.
“This landmark event will be a turning point towards food sovereignty and resilience for the entire continent. The International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Islamic Development Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and several bilateral partners are among international supporters of the summit,” he added.
He stated that the summit is at the heart of the bank Group’s Feed Africa Strategy, one of the institution’s High 5 priority areas to support African countries to significantly increase agricultural growth, adding that, the summit is a follow-up to the 2015 inaugural edition, during which the Feed Africa Strategy for Agricultural Transformation (2016-2025) in Africa, was proposed.
It is expected that during the summit, heads of state and government will convene sessions to develop transformational country-specific food and agriculture delivery compacts while development partners and the private sector will also play significant roles during sessions and the overall summit.
African countries are also expected to make measurable political commitments to implement policies designed to eliminate extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition in Africa.
The vice president for Agriculture, AfDB, Dr. Beth Dunford, said, the bank will provide targeted roadmaps toward self-sufficiency, and provide interventions that will make Africa’s agriculture sector more business-oriented and commercially viable.
“The summit will be the one-stop-shop for African countries pursuing more and better investments that are public sector enabled, and private sector-led,” Dunford said.
The gathering will showcase programmes already contributing to African food sovereignty and resilience. This includes the African Development Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) platform, which is delivering heat-tolerant wheat, drought-tolerant maize, and high-yield rice seeds to 11 million African farmers in 21 countries
On his part, the director for Agriculture and Agro-Industry, AfDB, Dr. Martin Fregene, noted that, TAAT will produce 100 million metric tonnes of additional food to feed 200 million people.
He said: “we know what works in Africa. Taking agricultural technology programs like TAAT to scale does more than boost agricultural outputs. It increases wealth, creates jobs and opens our markets up to regional and international trade. It is critical to support these efforts. Africa stands to gain – the world stands to gain – from such a concerted effort.”
Positive Streak To Linger On Stock Market This Week
Positive streak is expected to linger on the Nigerian stock market this week, OLUSHOLA BELLO writes.
Analysts on the Nigerian capital market said, positive sentiment will be sustained on the stock this week as investors lean towards financial stocks and other defensive stocks.
Analysts Optimism
Analysts at Cordros Securities Limited said: “in the subsequent weeks, we expect the NGX to be flooded with corporate earnings as more companies publish audited 2022 full year numbers, which will be accompanied by dividend declarations.
“We believe this should provide a catalyst for buying activities even as risk-averse investors are likely to remain cautious due to medium-term expectations of an uptick in FI yields. Overall, we advise investors to seek trading opportunities in only fundamentally justified stocks as the weak macro story remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings.”
Analysts at Afrinvest Limited stressed that, ‘this week, we expect the positive streak to linger on account of improved investor sentiment.’
Looking ahead into the new week, Cowry Assets Management Limited expected mixed sentiment and portfolio rebalancing in the midst of divergence in fixed income rates and policy rate adjustment to 17.50 per cent, in the face of fourth quarter (Q4) earnings expectations and election uncertainty, as pullback at this point add more strength to upside potential.
However, we continue to advise investors to trade on companies’ stocks with sound fundamentals,’ it said.
Last Week’s Trading Activities
Equiting trading, last week, started on a downside with mixed signals from technical indicators as investors’ reactions to full-year corporate earnings stood loud despite the excess liquidity in the fixed income space as exposed by the oversubscriptions recorded across tenor gauges of the Nigerian Treasury Bills on offers at the last Wednesday PMA despite the low rates.
To this end, the increased buying interest and mixed sentiment across some major sectors of the market, despite the apparently ranging position of the index action, may continue to give a clear direction as more companies release their scorecards.
Thus, benchmark index closed 0.12 per cent week on week at 52,657.88 points. Similarly, the market capitalisation gained N34 billion to close the week at N28.681 trillion.
Across the sectors last week, sentiments were largely positive for most of the indices except for the Consumer Goods index that lost 1.09 per cent week on week.
On the other hand, price appreciation from buying momentum were witnessed in the NGX Banking index with a weekly gain of 1.65 per cent. The NGX Oil & Gas index rose by 1.73 per cent, while NGX Insurance and NGX Industrial Goods indices rose by 0.77 per cent and 0.37 per cent respectively.
The market breadth for the week was positive as 44 equities appreciated in price, 29 equities depreciated in price, while 84 equities remained unchanged. Tripple Gee and Company led the gainers table by 31.25 per cent to close at N1.05, per share. International Energy Insurance followed with a gain of 28.57 per cent to close at 63 kobo, while Chellarams went up by 23.97 per cent to close to N1.81, per share.
On the other side, CWG led the decliners table by 13.46 per cent to close at 90 kobo, per share. Nigerian Breweries followed with a loss of 9.69 per cent to close at N41.95, while Thomas Wyatt Nigeria declined by 9.66 per cent to close at N1.31, per share.
Overall, a total turnover of turnover of 756.769 million shares worth N13.653 billion in 18,248 deals was traded last week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 1.241 billion shares valued at N15.668 billion that exchanged hands prior week in 18,560 deals.
The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 454.718 million shares valued at N4.813 billion traded in 8,214 deals; contributing 60.09 per cent and 35.26 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The ICT Industry followed with 61.735 million shares worth N1.647 billion in 1,600 deals, while the Conglomerates Industry traded a turnover of 56.842 million shares worth N119.141 million in 622 deals.
Trading in the top three equities; FBN Holdings (FBNH), Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) and Fidelity Bank (measured by volume) accounted for 165.522 million shares worth N2.320 billion in 2,530 deals, contributing 21.87 percent and 16.99 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
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