By Edmund Smith-Asante
 |
| Olusegun Obasanjo |
A former Nigerian President,
Olusegun Obasanjo, on Tuesday launched a prestigious award for the most
outstanding individual or institution whose contributions to African
agriculture are promoting sustainable food security and economic opportunity
for all Africans.
The Africa Food Prize, worth
$100,000, is aimed at celebrating Africans who are changing the face of farming
on the continent into a thriving business, with special focus on bold
initiatives and technical innovations that can be replicated across the
continent.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution
in Africa (AGRA) and Yara have established a secretariat for the prize and will
fund and support it.
The award will rely on nominations
through the Africa Food Prize website: www.africafoodprize.org
Winners will be chosen by the Africa
Food Prize Committee, which is made up of distinguished leaders in African
agriculture, and will be announced annually during a prize-awarding ceremony at
the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), starting with the 2016 AGRF
scheduled for September 5 to 9, 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Launch
Mr Obasanjo performed the launch
during the opening of the 12th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development
Programme (CAADP) Partnership Platform, an agricultural summit, on the theme:
“Innovative financing and renewed partnership to accelerate implementation of
CAADP”, in Accra.
Commenting on the award, Mr
Obasanjo, who is the Chairman of the Food Prize Committee, said, “We want to
celebrate individuals and institutions that are changing the reality of farming
in Africa from a gruelling struggle to survive to a profitable family business
that thrives.”
The Chairman and CEO of Econet
Wireless International and Board Chair of AGRA, Mr Strive Masiyiwa, said: “The
Africa Food Prize is another way we can drive a search for solutions to
fundamental problems, like the chronic lack of financing, that prevent African
farmers from achieving their potential.
“It can put a bright spotlight on
bold initiatives and technical innovations that can be replicated across the
continent to eliminate hunger and poverty and provide a vital new source of
employment and income.”
The President and CEO of Yara
International, Mr Svein Tore Holsether, noted that “the winners this past
decade have had one thing in common: A profound impact on African
agriculture”.
“I believe the Africa Food Prize
will continue to attract global attention to all the impressive African women
and men with a ‘can-do attitude’ and drive - people who play such a vital role
in transforming agriculture in Africa,” he said.
Background
In 2004, a former UN Secretary
General, Mr Kofi Annan, challenged the world to create an African Green
Revolution, to which Yara responded with the Yara Prize in 2005.
Past winners of the Yara Prize
include Dr Akinwumi Adesina, a former Nigerian Agriculture Minister, who now
heads the African Development Bank (AfDB); Agnes Kalibata, a former Minister of
Agriculture and Animal Resources in Rwanda, who now serves as AGRA’s President,
and Ousmane Badiane, Africa Director for the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI).
Writer’s email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh
This
story was first published by the Daily Graphic on April 14, 2016
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