By Ahmed Rahma
The Director of the Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research Department of African Development Bank (AfDB), Ms Hanan Morsy, has described agriculture as an important tool for inter-regional food integration.
Ms Morsy said this at the African Economic Conference 2020 themed Africa beyond COVID-19: Accelerating towards inclusive sustainable development and organised by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
“The agriculture sector is among the most vulnerable. Agriculture is important not only for food security issues but also for inter-regional food integration,” she said.
“We see this as an area that needs particular support, an area of opportunity going forward to increase inter-regional integration and to increase resilience against external shocks,” Ms Morsy added.
During a high-level panel session titled Africa beyond COVID-19: How to move towards inclusive and sustainable development, participants proposed tapping renewable sources of energy, adopting new technologies and leveraging the African Free Trade Agreement as some of the ways African countries are working to build back better from the COVID-19 crisis.
The panellist included Director Morsy, Bartholomew Armah Chief, Renewal of Planning Section Macroeconomic Policy Division; Ahunna Eziakonwa, Assistant Administrator and Director Regional for Africa, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Sanjay Pradhan, Chief Executive Officer, Open Government Partnership; Dorothy Jane Anika, Convener, Young Women in Political Party Leadership (Kenya) and, Member, UN Women Beijing 25+ Global Youth Task Force; and Dr Raymond Gilpin,
Chief Economist and Head of Strategy, Analysis and Research at UNDP Africa.
Speaking, Pradhan said, “We are seeing a catastrophic health crisis, a devastating economic crisis, a climate crisis that is ravaging communities, a crisis of inequality laid bare by the pandemic and a crisis of democracy reflecting citizens eroding trust in their governments. No single stakeholder group can tackle these crises on its own.”
“This year, we published a report that looked at what it would take to provide a temporary basic income in a COVID-19 affected world, and this is most important for Africa, where most people do not have any safety net to address the ravages of COVID-19,” Gilpin said.
According to Anika, “People need to see a human face and human feeling in response to COVID-19.”
