European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) ministers met in Rome on Sunday to discuss how to boost agricultural investments in Africa and create opportunities for young people to prevent them from having to emigrate from rural areas.
European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan said during the conference at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that they are supporting African countries to overcome the "structural difficulties that prevent the continent from transforming its agro-food sector."
Among those factors, he cited outdated methods, skill deficits and limited resources to invest responsibly in agriculture.
Hogan stated there is a need to create an attractive environment to carry out such investments and prevent young people from migrating to cities from rural areas, where 60% of the African population is concentrated.
He recalled that there is an agreement of preferential access to European markets for African exports, although "it only works when you have competitive products to sell," so he called on entrepreneurs to modernise the primary sector.
He added that the EU is preparing the launch of an action plan to promote private investment abroad in areas such as sustainable agriculture.
These steps come at a time when European authorities are seeking to strengthen their cooperation with Africa in the field of immigration in the face of the inability of EU countries to manage the migration flows.
The African Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Josefa Correía Sacko, insisted on the need to provide incentives to create attractive work opportunities, especially for women and young people, as well as to improve the technical skills and develop agro-business.
She stressed that the continent imports food worth 35 billion dollars every year, so she asked for the allocation of resources to change this situation and transform the fields, given the prospects of demographic pressure and high youth unemployment.
In 2014, about 11 million young Africans entered the labour market. The population of the continent is expected to double by 2050, to 2.4 billion people, mostly young people.
FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva called for the inclusion of young people in participatory processes, as well as for the construction of more infrastructures, such as roads and warehouses, in order to modernise the production chain, offer more social services in rural areas to generate jobs and improve the logistics of small towns.
Juergen Voegele, a World Bank expert, asked for innovation with the aim of creating jobs, rather than destroying them, and in that regard, he called on governments to support the sort of agriculture that generates job opportunities, helps deal with climate issues and improves the nutrition of the population, thus transforming "subsidies into investments."
The conference, prior to November's Africa-EU Summit in Ivory Coast, aims to promote private investment and market access in the agro-food sector in Africa, innovation and digitization, sustainable water management, the reduction of food waste and the implementation of sustainable practices in a context of climate change.
Source: EFE