0
0 NewsGhana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, Roger A. Agana, https://www.newsghana.com.gh/civil-groups-urge-afdb-to-rethink-africa-farm-finance/More than 30 civil society organisations are pressing the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) to sharpen its safeguards around agricultural financing, warning that the Bank’s multi-billion dollar food strategy risks locking Africa into industrial farming models that could deepen ecological and public health vulnerabilities across the continent.
The call, coordinated by the Stop Financing Factory Farming coalition, comes as the AfDB holds its 61st annual Board of Governors meeting in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, this week, bringing together more than 3,000 delegates including heads of state, finance ministers, central bank governors and private sector representatives.
At the centre of the debate is the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy, which projects that transforming the continent’s agriculture will require between $315 billion and $400 billion over a decade, with the AfDB committing $24 billion to help catalyse public and private investment. Civil society groups do not dispute the need for more agricultural capital. Their concern is what that capital builds.
Recent AfDB-backed initiatives, including Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs) and blended finance partnerships with international financial institutions, signal that lending to large-scale agri-food systems is set to expand significantly. The coalition argues that without stronger environmental and social safeguards, this trajectory risks prioritising production volumes over sustainability.
Antimicrobial resistance features prominently in the groups’ concerns. Studies conducted across multiple African countries between 2015 and 2019 estimated antimicrobial use in livestock production at between 3,558 and 4,279 tonnes, a figure the coalition says will rise as industrial livestock systems grow.
“Development finance decisions made today will shape agricultural systems, land use and rural economies across Africa for decades,” said Roselilly Ushewokunze, Executive Director of the Food Justice Network.
The organisations are urging the AfDB to halt financing for industrial livestock models linked to land conversion and unsustainable water use, scale up support for smallholder farmers, women producers and pastoralists, and increase transparency around its agricultural lending portfolio.
The Brazzaville meetings are the first annual gathering under AfDB President Dr Sidi Ould Tah, who took office in September 2025, and come as the continent’s development financing gap stands at $400 billion per year. That fiscal pressure makes the question of how agricultural finance is structured, not just how much is raised, increasingly consequential.
The annual meetings run through 29 May.
NewsGhana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, Roger A. Agana, https://www.newsghana.com.gh/civil-groups-urge-afdb-to-rethink-africa-farm-finance/
