Ambassador Sanders Speaks at Operation Hope Global Financial Summit (#HGF2016)

Ambassador Sanders (r) on Operation Hope Global Summit Panel

on "Global Unemployment," Atlanta, Georgia

Over the last three years one of the U.S.'s leading organizations which focuses on financial literacy, financial empowerment, and financial inclusion -- Operation Hope (OH) -- has hosted its annual Global Summit (Hope Global Forum, #HGF2016) bringing together world leaders on these empowerment and other key world issues.  This year was no different for the 3-day, high-level, information-packed, leading thought leaders' event held in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Ambassador (Dr.) Sanders served as a speaker on two of its prominent panels: "Global Youth Unemployment," where she discussed and shared her research on "Africa's Youth," bulge and how much more focus and effort needs to be made to address not only youth unemployment but also think about youth education in a different way, particularly as regards to vocational, SME, and entrepreneurial training. 

The Summit, lead by OH's dynamic leader, Chairman and Founder John Bryant, is the largest global forum that focuses on financial literacy/empowerment issues providing a platform for policy, business, foundation, activists, and non-governmental organizations to meet, discuss, and work together on options for the future.

Further on this forward-thinking approach, the OH Summit this year also held a panel on "Emerging Africa," for the first time,  which covered the range of positive changes and challenging issues the Continent is facing today. Dr. Sanders, as CEO-FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative, highlighted the role FEEEDS plays in helping power, information technology, agriculture and housing through and with African organizations and/or companies addressing economic development issues. Sanders provided for the audience examples of some of the innovative, work solutions that are being developed by young Africans to address the region's economic developed. Indeed, inroads in innovation in agricultural in Africa includes projects like Songhai, using "climate smart" techniques to increase food yields without damage to the environment;  or ABSI's green solutions for housing; and, creative technology solutions in power and education by Venture Garden Group.

She also noted that the @FEEEDS Index that the FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative publishes provides a direct window into what African people want and what issues are the most important to them regarding their future. Dr Sanders' participation in this year's OH Summit, will mark her third appearance in the 3-year Forum which began in 2014. In previous Forums she has highlighted the key role of mobile technology for Africa's development and work around development solutions given that the Continent is host to 700 million of the 1 billion global mobile phones.



A FEEES BlogSpot

FEEEDS Highlighted in Allafrica.com for White Paper on Upcoming US-Africa Summit

A FEEEDS BlogSpot

As published on Allafrica.com - 30 July 2014

FEEEDS Initiative (Washington, D.C.)

Africa: White Paper on 'Africa Forum' Pre-Summit Dialogue Released 

                       

                 

FEEEDS CEO Ambassador Robin Sanders (center) moderating 'Africa Forum' session on trade with Botswana Ambassador Tebelelo Mazile Seretse (left) and Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa Florie Liser.

               

Press Release

Washington, DC — Sponsors of the Africa Forum on July 10, 2014 have released their White Paper Report on the Forum - a Dialogue on Key African Issues prior to the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit event August 4-6, 2014.

 

The partner organizations include FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative, Gallup, The Africa Society, AllAfrica, and Operation Hope.

The White Paper summaries the discussions and recommendations by the Forum's panel of experts for the African leaders heading to Washington to meet with the U.S. President.

 

The Forum highlighted the importance of Africa Trade; Key Sectoral Developmental areas such as power, agriculture and the importance of SMEs and the Diaspora; and, emphasized next steps on African Governance Issues.

 

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Over 250 invitees attended The Africa Forum at Gallup's headquarters in Washington D.C.

White Paper Report: The Africa Forum - a Dialogue on Key Issues in Africa PDF

 

FEEEDS-Gallup-Africa Society DC 'Africa Forum' Kicks off Issues for the US-Africa Leaders Summit
Press Release (July 12, 2014)

Also see CEO-FEEEDS article in Huffpost on need for the US to consider holding meetings at the regional level with the 50 Heads of State or Government that will be attending the upcoming US-Africa Leaders Summit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-robin-renee-sanders/usafrica-leaders-summit-l_b_5602668.html

Ambassador Sanders at Brookings Institute: Discusses Africa's key Economic Development Areas

As part of a high level panel of Africa experts, Ambassador Sanders highlights her perspective on Africa 2014 and key areas of development -- SMEs, agriculture, ICT, support to the African Diaspora, education, and vocational training -- to address long term wealth creation and improvement in the quality of life for the majority of the African population. Click link to see program:

http://youtu.be/RYEVkrXSoK0

Agriculture as Part of An Eco-System, and not a Sector & Using PPPP’s

A FEEEDS Series
 
I have previously discussed new and innovative approaches to both agriculture and public-private partnerships (PPP) - arguing actually to expand the matrix of PPP's to include public-to-public sector partnerships or adding a fourth P (The Africa Post - http://bit.ly/4-Ps ). There is a need for more public sector entities to come together to share both resources and expertise to get development accomplished.  Public sector entities that have responsibilities for improving agriculture, housing, water and sewage management, the environment, and spuring manufacturing should move out of their stove piped bureaucracies and develop PPPP vehicles that cut across their sectors. This type of innovative thinking needs to be done particularly in agriculture in order to address food security -- especially in Africa -- since land, water, and environmental management are not separate from agriculture or long term food security. 

In essence the PPPP approach (meaning adding public-to-public sector projects and policies) views agriculture as part of an eco-system, and not a stand-alone sector, which of course it is not.  These public sector-to-public sector approaches can be linked with getting expertise from non-profit and for profit organizations, companies, and international donors with the flexibility to work in a synergistic manner across sectors.  Very few large international donors have this flexibility, but the British development agency DFID probably comes closest. Country donors like the Japanese and south-south nations like Vietnman are closer than others to appreciating the seminal point that agriculture is part of an eco-system.


One such model that is pioneering this new thought is - Songhai Integrative Farms Systems in the Republic of Benin. It presents the answer to changing the age old paradigm of vertical agricultural development. Although this old paradigm served as the model for decades, it did not worked; was ineffective; and in the end, was detrimental to the overall GDP of nearly all African countries pursuing this standard historical approach to agriculture after their independence in the 1960s. Historically, donors equally have been guilty of  not thinking out of the box, or even next to the box on agriculture, although that is changing with more value chain focused agriculture projects like USAID’s Markets Initiative http://1.usa.gov/XhDnHF ).

 Songhai sees the importance of a systems approach to agricultural development adding training and technology as well as an incubator framework to help farming entrepreneurs, and build linkages with academic and research institutions around the world in support.  There are more and more new thinkers coming on board and seeing agricultural as part of a system as opposed to a sector.  But they are far and few in between. Efforts to really have food security spur agricultural self-sufficiency and truly have a workable, sustainable value chain to support commodities, advance regional trade, and combat the cycles of drought and famine that we have seen in both East and West Africa, and the world are not being wholistically addressed or viewed by many development entities as connected issues. 

The Eco-System, rather than the Sectoral approach to agriculture needs to be pursued by a lot more countries, donors, and agriculturally focused non-government organizations and companies with this CRS manadate for their truly to be a paradigm shift and success in agricultural development.     

Nigeria's Agricultural Agenda - Fixing both the Commodity & Financing Value Chains in Agriculture

A FEEEDS Series

As a result of presentations recently on Nigeria's Agricultural Transformation Agenda by senior members of the Nigeria Government, the private sector, and international institutions at both Corporate Council on Africa event and the annual meetings of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, clearly there are two value chain dimensions for Nigeria's agricultural sector:

-- The commodity-structure-productivity and policy framework under the Ministry of Agriculture; and,

-- The need to fix the financing value chain - meaning such things as getting Nigerian Banks to not only lend to farmers, but understand farming needs, especially the small farm holder, and improving the insurance regulatory framework. The country's Central Bank is leading the way on reframing the agricultural finance issues.

These two comprehensive value chains (commodity-productivity development & financing) have a symbiotic relationship - both need to improve in order for the agricultural sector to not only transform, but also to provide the growth potential for the country and for the West Africa Region writ large. Both the Ministry of Agriculture and Nigeria's Central Bank have recognized the pivotal linkage of these two value chain issues, and have put forces together to change the negative paradigms of the last 30 years in the country's agriculture sector. Key efforts include unlocking more than $3 billion in potential financing through several innovative programs such as the Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing for Agricultural Lending Program (NIRL Program); incentives and initiatives for women farmers; innovative SME development in the agricultural sector, and credit and financing for small farm holders. In addition there is an effort to ensure that there are "agricultural desks" at Nigerian Banks, and that these banks also increase the number of women in senior leadership positions by 40 per cent. The Bank of Industry, an arm of Nigeria's Ministry of Trade, is in partnership with both the Central Bank and the Ministry of Agriculture and pushes for greater support for women farmers, women cooperatives, financing for women, and SME development. The flip side of course is to work with farmers so that they too see agriculture as a business.

International institutions like the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has also stepped up its focus on agriculture as it recently announced an increase of $3.5-4 billion in 2012 for sub-Saharan Africa (up from $2.7 billion in 2011) -- a good portion of this reportedly will be focused on agricultural projects. Infrastructure is the other key area of focus for these funds, along with transportation, food storage, and technology. Banks like Standard Charter is also pioneering with risk insurance for farmers and better credit terms.

This is all good news for Nigeria and for to the other 15 nations in West Africa region. Why? Because if Nigeria can transform its agricultural sector (fixing the commodity-productivity value chain as well as the financing value-chain), this can spur greater sub-regional trade (intra-Africa trade is only about 10 per cent of exports, see www.bit.ly/AFreframe); and, more economic growth for a sub-region with one of the Continent’s and world’s largest and youngest populations. We have all heard the projections that Africa will likely reach the 2 billion person mark at the same time we come close to reaching mid-Century, with one-third of the population reportedly being under the age of 30.

Here is another figure to ponder for West Africa. There are roughly 600 million people living in that sub-region today who are under the age of 30 and about 65 per cent of those work in subsistence agriculture (www.bit.ly/WesYou)). Last reports had Nigeria's youth numbers hovering around 75 million and counting. Thus, there is a demographic importance (the youth bulge) to improving agriculture in addition to the common sense driven needs of: spurring economic growth; improving trade, and increasing GDP. I have written before about Africa's youth needing to become the world's next leading farmers as well as the importance of the region becoming the next global bread basket (www.bit.ly/YouAgric . (FYI: Africa and Latin America are the two areas of the world with the most remaining arable land and water resources). More and more this is being borne out by not only the demographic facts, but certainly the reframing and resurgence in focus by many African government, international institutions, and the African and foreign private sectors on the fundamental importance of fixing agriculture's two value chain issues.