Live With Water
The Concept
- During the Rockefeller Foundation’s centennial celebration in Abuja (2013), African ministers of agriculture and finance requested the foundation support a policy network that would help them identify concrete ways to strengthen Africa’s economic growth and benefit its people through agriculture development.
- The Leadership for Agriculture Network was then established in Nairobi, Kenya on July 2014 by 5 African Ministers of agriculture and finance, the Rockefeller Foundation and the African Union Commission.
- Both agriculture and finance ministers have a critical role to play in creating favorable conditions for the development of the sector.
They therefore need to jointly provide leadership for their common vision vis-à-vis policy reforms, scale-up of innovations and in implementing measures to make agriculture commercially attractive.
Who?
The Rockefeller Foundation
The Task
- Build a leading policy network for African Ministers of Agriculture and Finance that would strengthen Africa’s economic growth by boosting agriculture development.
- Organize the network’s launch.
The Outcomes
- The network’s launch on February 15, 2015 in Rome, Italy was attended by 9 ministers, 10 technical staff from various ministries, 19 diplomats from embassies based in Rome, 12 UN representatives, The Rockefeller Foundation and IFAD.
- A press conference was held with international media to create wide recognition of and interest in the network during and immediately after the launch.
- 12 case studies were developed as requested by the ministers and 3 of them were presented during the closed ministerial meeting in Rome for them to learn about innovative agricultural success stories in Africa.
- The network grew to 14 members including 12 government ministers, 1 member who is the AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, and 1 member who is AGRA’s President.
- A gala dinner was also organized, which provided an opportunity to introduce the network to a wider audience comprising government officials, civil society and private sector representatives.
- A panel discussion on Small Scale Farmer as a Business Unit: Challenges and Opportunities created room to discuss the network’s vision, the founding ministers’ views on its added value, inclusive growth and how to best attract funds to grow Africa’s agricultural sector.