President Sahle-Work, AfDB chief discuss Ethiopia’s development priorities
President Sahle-Work Zewde met with African Development Bank President Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina while on a working visit to Côte d’Ivoire.
Meeting at the Bank’s headquarters in Abidjan, they discussed Ethiopia’s current and post-Covid-19 development priorities.
Describing the African Development Bank as Ethiopia’s development partner of choice, President Zewde commended the Bank for its longstanding support and its role in Ethiopia’s development. “In so many areas agriculture, transport, energy, the water sector, multisector the support we have been getting for years from the African Development Bank, up to more than one billion dollars, has been very vital for Ethiopia,” she said.
She said Ethiopians had endured a difficult time over the past two years but that there were positive signs for the future despite the troubles the country was going through. “Industrial parks have especially brought about hope for many young Ethiopians, but specifically women,” she said.
New interactive report shows Africa’s growing hunger crisis
A new, interactive digital report launched shows that the number of hungry people in Africa continues to rise, spurred by conflict, climate change and economic slowdowns including those triggered by COVID-19. The African Union Commission (AUC), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) launched the digital report as the latest update to their annual reporting on the state of food security and nutrition in Africa.
Hunger on the continent has worsened substantially since 2013, the report states, and most of this deterioration occurred between 2019 and 2020. The situation is expected to have deteriorated further this year, with no easing of hunger’s main drivers.
The three agencies behind the report are calling on African countries to heed the call for agrifood systems transformation.
“Countries must engage in and leverage the outcomes of the United Nations Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit and the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26),” FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa Abebe Haile-Gabriel said with William Lugemwa, UNECA’s Director of the Private Sector Development and Finance Division, and Josefa Sacko, African Union Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment, in the report’s joint foreword.
