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Ghana to host 2019 African Green Revolution Forum next month

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA 

Accra, Aug. 19, GNA – President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo will open the 2019 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in
Accra on Tuesday, September 3, to discuss policies, programmes and investments
needed to solve the major challenges affecting agricultural sector in Africa.

The forum will evaluate how far the African
Continent has progressed in the past decade and look at ways to jumpstart what
needs to be done differently in the next five to 10 years, to put Africa’s
agriculture on a new footing with digitisation as a key driver to the
agricultural transformation.

The four-day forum is expected to bring
together 2,000 delegates including Heads of State, Ministers of Agriculture,
Central Bank Governors, captains of industry, development partners, representatives
of farmer organizations, youth entrepreneurs and other critical stakeholders,
to focus on policies needed to move the African Continent forward.

The AGRF Conference will be held on the
theme: “Grow Digital: Leveraging Digital Transformation to Drive Sustainable
Food Systems in Africa,” which will be hosted by

Government of Ghana and AGRF Partners Group,
under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo.

Mr Foster Boateng, the AGRA Resident
Regional Director for West Africa, shedding more light on the forum at a media
encounter in Accra on Sunday, said the forum is a unique multi-disciplinary
platform where delegates discuss and commit towards programmes, investments and
policies that will solve the major agriculture challenges in Africa.

He said hosting of AGRF in Accra was very
important to Ghana because the idea was mooted by former UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, and also the founding chairman of AGRF.

The AGRF is considered the world’s most
important and impactful forum for Africa agriculture, pulling together
stakeholders in agricultural landscape to take practical actions and share
lessons that will move Africa agricultural sector forward.

Mr Boateng said AGRF 2019 will identify and
catalyse enabling policies, programmes and investments to leverage digital
transformation to drive sustainable food systems in Africa.

He noted that Africa has an opportunity to
leapfrog the agricultural transformation trajectory of the past and
revolutionise life by overcoming isolation, speeding up change, creating jobs
and scaling up.

The 2019 Africa Food Prize Winner will be
announced at the forum while this year’s laureate will be selected by an
Independent Prize Committee, which will be chaired by former President of
Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo.

The Prize will recognise an extraordinary
individual whose outstanding contribution to African agriculture in recent
years is forging a new era of food security and economic opportunity for all
Africans.

It will also showcase the outstanding
leadership of President Akufo-Addo and government of Ghana in advancing Ghana’s
national agricultural transformation agenda.

Other African governments will also have the
opportunity to showcase the progress made in the agricultural sector and
lessons learnt towards unlocking billions of dollars in private investments and
finance from the private sector and share compelling evidence across the
Continent and the world.

GNA

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