Event Details
17 November 2020 - 8:00am - 4:00pm GMT
8:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
Does Africa Need a Food Policy?
Presentation and discussion on existing food policies and whether or not they facilitate transition to sustainable food systems.
9:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
Building Resilient Food and Agriculture Systems
The challenge of achieving the most urgent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the elimination of poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2) – is greatest in Sub Saharan Africa. Agricultural development has the potential to alleviate poverty, boost economic activity, and enhance food security and nutrition at household and national levels. For this to be sustained, agri-food system development must be ‘climate smart’ – productive whilst ensuring adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change.
9:00am- 10:00am
GMT
Side Session
9:00am- 10:00am
GMT
Side Session
9:00am- 10:00am
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Side Session
9:00am- 9:45am
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Side Session
10:30am- 11:15am
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Plenary Session
11:30am- 1:30pm
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Side Session
11:30am- 12:30pm
GMT
Main Track
11:30am- 1:00pm
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Main Track
11:30am- 1:30pm
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Main Track
1:00pm- 2:00pm
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Main Track
1:00pm- 2:00pm
GMT
Main Track
1:00pm- 2:00pm
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Main Track
2:30pm- 3:15pm
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Side Session
2:30pm- 3:15pm
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Side Session
3:30pm- 4:15pm
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Side Session
Financing Agri-Business SMEs in Uganda During the COVID-19 Era and Beyond
The United National Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) in partnership with the European Union and the Government of Uganda is implementing designated components of a five-year Development Initiative for Northern Uganda (DINU). The Support to Agricultural Revitalization and Transformation (START) facility is designed to support the implementation of DINU food security and nutrition component and will benefit the 38 districts in Northern Uganda. START is structured as a blended financing facility providing a customized mix of Business Development Services, Project development & Financial structuring services and financial products in form of concessional loans, project-based guarantees and technical assistance grants to SMEs engaged in agricultural value addition and agro-processing. The facility is also providing reimbursable grants under the Small Business Recovery Fund (SBRF) to support SMEs affected by the impact of COVID-19 to overcome their immediate working capital needs stabilize and return to growth trajectory. The UNCDF is working with the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda (PSFU) and Uganda Development Bank Limited (UDBL) to fulfill the program objectives and mandates
Mobilizing Partnerships to Secure Food Systems in Africa
The event focuses on three specific topics Women in Agriculture, Governance, and Intra-Africa Trade particularly seek to provide practical and actionable recommendations to mitigate the current crisis for the short- and long-term programs in response to the Corona virus. It will provide us with an opportunity to interrogate systemic and structural barriers towards securing food systems in Africa but also amplify the voices of small scale farmers on food security.
Up in Smoke 2.0
The pandemic has heightened the sense of urgency for the adoption of sustainable water, energy, and food security solutions and yet made navigating the road ahead increasingly complex. The ramifications of poverty relapses and millions of urban and rural households slipping into poverty are arguably evident in the accelerated rate of the depletion of our forests. What are the implications on existing strategies and the future role of key actors in post-COVID-19 solutions?
OPENING PLENARY
Galvanizing Partnerships for Promoting Resilient Agriculture and Food Systems in Africa in the Shadow of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
(Re) insurance and the Agricultural Sector
TRACK # 1 GOVERNMENT & POLICY TRACK - Immediate and Short-Term Responses to the Impacts of Covid-19 on Food Security
This session will explore how governments in Eastern and Southern Africa are responding to the Covid-19 crisis: what are the related disruptions (demand, production and trade shocks) and what are considered best/successful approaches to controlling the disease and containing the immediate and short term impacts by addressing these disruptions, both in rural and urban areas.
TRACK # 2 SOCIAL PROTECTION - Moving Toward Inclusive Shock Responsive Systems
Shares country experiences of social protection response interventions to address COVID-19, highlighting gaps, challenges and good practices to improve inclusivity and shock responsiveness of social protection systems.
TRACK #4 INTRA-AFRICA TRADE TRACK - Intra-Africa Trade in the Age of COVID-19 – Issues, Challenges and Way Forward
What are the challenges (pre-COVID and emerging due to COVID), both trade and non-trade, to increasing intra-African trade in agriculture and how has the pandemic exacerbated or mitigated these?
What should be done to alleviate the pitfalls in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area to make it work for intra-African trade in agriculture? What are the policies, regulatory and structural reforms that governments need to put in place to advance diversification of traded products, including agriculture, on the continent?
TRACK #7 WOMEN & AGRICULTURE - Bringing Lessons from African Countries to Scale: How to Support Young Women to Drive Inclusive and Resilient Food Systems
In this session, we bring young women voices into the discussion, hoping to learn from their experiences and to stimulate wider interest in supporting them better to derive their livelihoods from agriculture. We further explore lessons learnt by experts, who will offer recommendations on what can be scaled up based on country-level initiatives.
TRACK #6 TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
TRACK #8 AGRIBUSINESS & FINANCE
How Biofortification can Strengthen Food and Nutrition Security and Food Systems in Response to COVID-19
COVID-19 is disrupting domestic markets with significant impact on food systems and nutrition security in vulnerable communities. This roundtable panel will discuss how CGIAR’s work with biofortification can build resilience and help countries maintain improved nutrition levels in the face of future shocks.
Scaling AgTech Innovation through Digital Platforms
The agriculture sector in Africa has been facing systemic challenges over the past decades including issues around markets, infrastructure and exclusion. These challenges affect most smallholder farmers who account for 80% of food producers in the continent.
Digital solutions have a huge potential to revolutionize the sector’s modus operandi, opening new markets that can be scaled quickly and offering “end to end” services at a cost-effective way, leading to improvement in the welfare of smallholder farmers.
GIZ, Mercy Corps AgriFin and Dalberg Advisors have been working together to understand how young technology innovators can be supported in scale and operational viability by engaging with emerging models of digital platforms.
The research has identified platform partners in Kenya and Nigeria to explore and gain insights into the key operational dynamics of emerging digital platforms for agriculture and develop recommendations to drive ecosystem change.
Join us with a panel of experts as we share our emerging insights, and stimulate discussion around how different ecosystem players can engage to drive innovation and maximise impact for smallholder farmers.
What it Takes to Develop and Manage a Digitally-enabled Field Force
More than 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide play a pivotal role in food production, accounting for 80% of production in the global south. Historically, it has been difficult for organisations to get information, products or services to or from smallholder farmers, compounding existing infrastructural problems such as access to inputs, financing, training and access to markets. The increase in available and affordable digital tools including mobile technology, remote-sensing data, climate smart-technology and data management tools, represent an opportunity to ease the challenges faced by smallholder farmers and revolutionize the sector’s modus operandi.
Over the past 5-10 years, the way that organisations engage with smallholder farmers has evolved significantly - from manual data collection and service delivery, using highly skilled agronomists in the field – to fully digital models where services are deployed solely through mobile devices. Given the complexity of services, organisations are rapidly realising that a blended model is required, and investing in digitally enabled rural field forces to enhance their service provision with a combination of human interaction and digital tools. The challenge now facing agricultural organizations is how best to leverage the power of digital tools, blended with human touch points in a way that optimizes delivery and cost.
Dalberg and AgriFin Accelerate have engaged with several organisations over recent years and supported them in developing field force strategies and the supporting technology required to effectively deploy a blended model that merges human touch points and digital tools.
Join us with a panel of experts as we share our emerging insights, and stimulate discussion around key considerations for successfully managing and deploying a field force to maximise impact for smallholder farmers.
Digital Technology & Data-Led Citizen Reporting: Emergency Response to the Desert Locust Crisis in East Africa
Large parts of Africa are battling with the worst Desert Locust outbreak in decades, with signs pointing to a looming food security crisis in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recognizing the severe impact of this crisis, and the powerful opportunity to leverage digital tools in response, Mercy Corps AgriFin pivoted to develop a multi-channel emergency response portfolio with a number of its most agile partners able to deploy and scale rapidly.
Since April, AgriFin has been deploying information campaigns across several different platforms (including WhatsApp backed by machine learning capabilities, SMS, IVR, Call Centers, TV shows & Facebook) to inform response efforts in close collaboration with local partners, government agencies and research organizations to capture as wide an audience as possible. These campaigns have grown from a thousand messages in April, to 88,000 messages to date providing vital ground intelligence of locust sightings to spur ground and aerial response. To date, we have reached 6 million farmers across messaging channels.
Join us and a panel of experts as we explore the ways in which this year East Africa has faced an unprecedented Desert Locust outbreak that threatens smallholder farmers’ incomes and regional food security. Mercy Corps AgriFin, supported by the Skoll Foundation and working in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University’s PlantVillage team, has deployed digital technologies and partnerships to enable citizen reporting of desert locust sightings from rural communities to support the mapping and control response beginning in Kenya and expanding to Ethiopia, reaching millions of farmers.
During this session we will be exploring the role insurance plays towards enabling a more resilient and productive agricultural system financially and production wise. We will explore, discuss and give proposals on the current status and role of agriculture insurance in the African Continent, the current initiatives that are successful or looking promising, the key lessons learnt from the various markets including global perspectives and programs. Based on the new challenges arising such as new risk exposures including the Covid-19 Pandemic, we will discuss and explore initiatives, product design options and technologies that can be deployed to enable the uptake and implementation of successful programs. We will also seek to learn from local and global best practices..
Our Vision
Creating a financially independent of the usual donors and investors in the African agriculture space and provide a safe, neutral opportunity for dialog, partnership building, innovation and networking.