Event Details
18 November 2020 - 8:00am - 4:00pm GMT
FAO
Debunking Myths about Making Digital Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa: Examples from East and West Africa
9:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
9:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
9:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
9:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
10:30am- 11:30am
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Main Track
10:30am- 11:30am
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Main Track
10:30am- 11:30am
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Main Track
12:00pm- 1:30pm
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Main Track
12:00pm- 1:00pm
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Main Track
12:00pm- 1:00pm
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Main Track
12:00pm- 1:00pm
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Main Track
1:30pm- 2:15pm
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Plenary Session
2:30pm- 3:15pm
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Side Session
2:30pm- 3:15pm
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Side Session
How to Boost African Food Production to Increase Resilience in Times of Pandemics: Innovation, Investment and Policy Priorities
Information Climate-resilient Policy in Africa
The challenge of achieving the most urgent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the elimination of poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2) – is greatest in Sub Saharan Africa. Agri-food system development must be ‘climate smart’ – productive whilst ensuring adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. The GCRF-AFRICAP’s integrated assessment framework (iFEED –integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets) is a new tool that brings together state-of-the-art crop and climate modelling with trade and nutrition analyses, expert knowledge, and stakeholder-driven research agendas in order to map pathways to desirable futures. Crop modelling as part of iFEED is used to project the impacts of climate change on a range of agricultural commodities and examine possible future land use patterns in order to explore implications for future nutrition security and climate smart agriculture.
TRACK #1 GOVERNMENT & POLICY TRACK - Medium- and Longer-Term Planning: Building Resilience to Future Shocks
The disruptions caused by Covid-19 have intensified and recreated previously addressed dilemmas. At the same time, there is an opportunity to ‘build back better’, creating more resilient and sustainable systems. Shocks can be seen as opportunities – they provide useful insights into the system pinch points and help to focus attention on the fundamentals of challenges. In turn, shocks force a reprioritization/streamlining of resources and efforts. The second session will explore interventions and policies targeted at restoring (food) systems and livelihoods and explore how governments are (re)prioritizing their focus areas, impact and investments.
CLOSING PLENARY
Examine and discuss the importance of social protection as an integral part of medium- and long-term resilience building, supporting recovery, sustainable development for small-scale agricultural workers and food system actors in the rural sector, and reducing poverty. The session will allow for sharing of diverse experiences addressing policy and programmatic entry points for economically inclusive social protection.
TRACK # 3 DOMESTIC MARKET
TRACK # 2 SOCIAL PROTECTION - An Essential Component of Long-Term Resilience and Inclusive COVID-19 Recovery
TRACK # 5 SUPPLY CHAIN
TRACK #7 WOMEN & AGRICULTURE
TRACK #8 AGRIBUSINESS & FINANCE
COVID-19 and Fertilizer Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa: Impacts and Policy Responses
Like the rest of the world, African governments responded to COVID-19 by imposing partial or total nationwide lockdowns, curfews, quarantines, reduction of transport and travel services, restrictions on open markets, closures of educational institutions, shut down of factories, closing borders, forcing people engaged in non-essential activities to stay at home and practicing social distancing and hygiene practices. Although the measures are necessary and desirable, they have unintended consequences. The actions are disrupting food and agricultural supply chains, producing shocks on economic activities, resulting in losses of jobs, livelihood incomes and remittances. This is resulting is affecting fertilizer value chains especially operations at the port, domestic transport, borders and transit times, farmers’ access and availability of fertilizers, and retail prices of fertilizers. We draw on monthly data that are being collected to track responses by governments with respect to the fertilizer industry and impacts and provide actionable insights to inform decision making on fertilizer policy and regulatory interventions to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic in the short, medium and long run.
Riding the Digital Data Wave: Barriers and Innovation in Agricultural Data Sharing
The global volume of data is growing exponentially, driven primarily by new data collection instruments and the increasing adoption of digital technologies. This “digital data wave” in agriculture is supporting the development of new business models and services that can provide lower-cost solutions that can more readily reach scale and open new markets. Additionally, with the rise of platforms, more data is being created and shared between partners, allowing them to jointly innovate. Despite this innovation, many companies and partners are facing significant barriers in realizing the potential of data, particularly through data sharing partnerships.
Over the past five years, AgriFin has worked on over 130 engagements to support the delivery of digital services to smallholder farmers. Many of these engagements have included data partnerships between a range of actors including banks, mobile network operators, AgTech companies, large agricultural enterprises and governments. Underpinning many of these data partnerships are complex negotiations about how data sharing can unlock service delivery and enable different social and commercial outcomes for different players. Drawing on this experience, AgriFin will share key insights and learnings on maximizing the potential of data. Join us for a discussion between key experts sharing their real-life experience on data sharing in the agricultural space.
This session will discuss how investments in innovations and related policies should be prioritized to enable Africa to increase food supplies from the use of its own resources and thereby improve the resilience of the African food system against pandemics and other shocks. In addition to boosting productivity at the production level, the session will also evaluate options for increasing food supplies by reducing post-harvest losses, improving processing capacities and facilitating inclusive markets across Africa.
The side session will be a moderated Q & A conversation with people working to extend access to and usage of digital solutions to improve prospects for smallholder farmers. Panelists will debunk some of the myths that hinder access to and usage of digital solutions to smallholder farmers, providing real examples from East and West Africa.
TRACK # 6 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
Our Vision
Creating a financially independent of the usual donors and investors in the African agriculture space and provide a safe, neutral opportunity for dialog, partnership building, innovation and networking.