The Government of Korea and the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group are intent on strengthening their partnership to support African countries in achieving food security in five years.
The Bank in a statement on its website said the duo also planned on boosting the continent’s capability to produce its own vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.
The AfDB Group President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said there was every reason to believe that Africa would rapidly achieve food sufficiency, and certainly within five years.
Adesina said the bank, together with AfricaRice Research Centre, recently launched the 650 million dollars Regional West Africa Rice Development (REWARD) programme in 16 West African countries.
He said under the programme, a million farmers would be involved in cultivating up to 750,000 hectares of land to produce 53 million metric tons of rice in five years.
According to him, Korea, through its K-Ricebelt initiative (link is external), is working with eight African countries to produce 10,000 metric tons of rice, enough to feed 30 million people.
He said that Korea planned to invest up to 100 million dollars into the project by 2027.
Adesina said: “The AfDB’s REWARD and Korea’s K-Ricebelt, shall work together across the entire continent and make Africa self-sufficient in rice production in five years.
“We have the technologies, the seed companies, input supply systems that use digital technology for distribution.
“And we also have financing at scale. Let us merge the two initiatives to work under the Bank’s Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) platform,” the AfDB chief added.
TAAT was launched in 2018 as part of the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy to harness proven technologies and raise agricultural productivity across Africa.
Adesina said that, while increasing productivity to reduce reliance on food imports, it was also important to ensure that the quality of locally produced rice met that of imports.
He said: “We must also bridge the competitiveness gap by investing in rice processing infrastructure.
“And ensuring zones of production are close to milling plants to reduce transportation cost that end up inflating the price of such commodities.”
Korea’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Hwang-keun Chung, said that there are plans to invite more African countries to participate in the K-Ricebelt initiative and invest in supporting infrastructure.
“We want to increase participating countries. We will build a seed complex with irrigation facilities and agricultural machinery.
“Korea has highly advanced milling technology and can explore how to deploy it across Africa.
“We will review how to work together with the African Development Bank on these initiatives,” Chung said.
Earlier, the AfDB president met with the Korean Minister for Health and Welfare, Kyoo Hong Cho, to discuss Africa’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its capability to manufacture vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.
Adesina said that Africa had learnt a vital lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: “The continent was caught unprepared. It could not readily manufacture its own sanitisers and protective equipment.
“We cannot continue to outsource the health of Africans to the benevolence of others.”
The AfDB president asked Korea to support the Africa Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, which it had initiated.
He explained that it was established in 2022 to act as a transparent intermediate, advancing and brokering the interests of the African pharmaceutical sector with global and other Southern pharmaceutical companies.
Adesina said it would share intellectual-property-protected technologies, know-how and patented processes.
He said the bank was in the process of launching a fellowship programme that would send Africa’s pharmaceutical scientists for attachments to medical science centres in advanced countries.
Responding, Minister Cho said he was impressed by the Bank’s effort to strengthen local capability production of vaccines and other pharmaceuticals.
He said: “Africa has its own particular climate, environment and circumstances.
“It is important to manufacture within Africa pharmaceuticals that meet the continent’s needs. There is scope for cooperation between Africa and Korea.”
Minister Cho added that Africa’s scientists would benefit from training offered by Korea following its designation last May by the World Health Organisation as the global training hub in biomanufacturing.
While in Seoul, the Bank chief also met with the National Assembly’s Forum for Africa Co-Chair, Myoung Su Lee, and President of the Korea-Africa Foundation, Lyeo Woon-ki.
Korea joined the African Development Bank in 1982. It will host the 2024 Korea-Africa Summit to establish mutual, beneficial and sustainable long-term cooperative relations with Africa.
