The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, has expressed the willingness of the Bank to support the Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) in addressing food security challenges in the drylands of Africa.
Dr. Adesina made this commitment when he visited the CDA to felicitate with the Centre’s MSc and PhD graduates, who have completed their study.
Dr Adesina said he was impressed with the track record of the CDA, especially in winning multiple grants from the World Bank, MacArthur Foundation and other donors to address climate adaptation and food security issues in the drylands. He was also particularly impressed with the diversity of students from all over Africa.
“I was very impressed with what the University does in all areas and in particular the rigour they approach their work. I am delighted to be here at this Centre, they are doing fantastic work.”
“Why this Centre is very important is that we live in an era of climate change and we get only three percent of agriculture under irrigation, therefore we have to help our farmers to make informed decisions under the uncertainties of climate. Farmers need to have access to technologies that allow their production systems to be resilient in the face of climate change.”
“I am impressed with the work that I saw here. The African Development Bank will support the work they are doing in three to four ways. First, we will work with them to become one of the key centres to get technology such as water-efficient maize, and heat-tolerance wheat varieties to farmers at the scale of millions.
“Secondly we will work with them to also become a Centre which we can use in modelling work so that we can know how to predict weather patterns and get that information to farmers so that they can plant better and the Bank will work with them through a program we call Africa Disaster Insurance Facility which supports farmers in countries in the face of climate change.
“The third area that we think is going to be important is the Agric pitch for people to develop their business ideas and get up to 120,000 dollars in grants. The major thing is to adapt to climate change. We will support CDA to be able to do more and also to be able to have a significant amount of more resources to be able to do more for those that win.
“I will make sure that this Centre is given priority by the Global Centre on Adaptation which I sit on the board together with the former UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon because you are doing exactly what we want to see – supporting farmers in the face of climate change,” he said.
The Director of the Centre, Professor Jibrin Mohammed Jibrin had earlier made a brief presentation about the historical evolution of the Centre, which he said was established in 2012 by the University through a MacArthur Foundation seed grant of $800,000.