GHANA – A VALUABLE CONSTITUENT OF THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

By – Yidana Hameed KobigBilla

On July 24-26 2024, Mr. Rufus N. Darkortey, an Executive Director at the African Development Bank for the Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan constituency embarked on a three -day Mission to Ghana to discuss issues around the Bank Group portfolio in the country including future priority areas and also, follow up actions needed to actualize existing priority areas of government.

The visit came at the back of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Bank in Nairobi and also a Consultation Mission to the Republic of Ghana in July 15th 2024. Mr. Darkortey was received in Accra where he had a consultative engagement with Ghana’s Minister of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam where the various portfolios that the Bank is supporting in Ghana, formed the basis for discussion.

As part of stakeholder consultations, the executive director travelled to Ghana’s Northern region where he was received by project staff of the Savannah Agriculture Value Chain Development Project, SADEP. Mr. Dakortey expressed his excitement to be in Ghana and underscored the importance of Ghana as a valuable member of his constituency within the African Development Bank. He conveyed the gratitude of the Bank’s President, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, to the Government and People of Ghana for the level of cooperation to ensure the wholistic development of Africa where there is a focus on food sovereignty, food self-sufficiency, food security, gender and youth vulnerability issues.

Mr. Rufus also enumerated the Bank’s projects in Ghana singling out the enormous work done in the transport sector with transformational projects including the Pokuasi interchange, the terminal three expansion at the Kotoka international airport, and work done in the energy sector.

In a welcome brief, Madam Theresa Fynn, Ag. Project Coordinator of SADEP narrated the design and implementation of the Savannah Zone Agriculture Productivity Improvement Project (SAPIP) which saw the introduction of large-scale commercial agriculture production of maize, soybean and rice. Mrs. Fynn stressed on how the sustained effort by the Bank support through its Feed Africa Strategy, where subsequent projects such as the Savannah Investment Programme (SIP), the GAFSP support to SIP through to the SADEP has been a game changer in achieving outputs set out in the design of these projects. Mr. Abubakar Seidu, TAAT-S project officer in support of Theresa Fynn’s welcome brief, stressed on the need for improvement in future project designs to make use of knowledge materials produced by the Bank as well as increasing funding to be able to bring about meaningful change in Agriculture.

Through the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation in the Savannahs (TAAT-S), 4 commercial farmers, cultivating 87ha of maize and soybean in 2018 grew to a current total of 454 commercial farmers cultivating 4,950ha of soy, 33,050ha of maize making a total of 38000ha under production. These commercial farmers work with over 78,000 smallholder farmers with each having a holding of 3.6 ha. This translates into a contribution of 15.87% increment in the production of Soy, 18.62% increment in the production of Maize, 30.16% increment in the production of Rice culminating in an overall 21.64% contribution to the national production of maize, soy and rice.

These figures, obviously a quantum leap within 7 years of the Bank support to Agriculture in Ghana would excite anyone who is eager to see Africa feed itself. Mr. Rufus was not left out of this excitement and so, together with Mr. Bekale Ollame, Country Program Officer (the officer in Charge in the absence of the Country Manager) and Mr. Felix N. Darimaani, Senior Agric and Natural Resource Management Officer the SADEP team led the mission on a field visit.
Cudjoe Abimash Farms, of one of the pilot Farmers from the inception of AfDB support to large scale commercial Agriculture in Ghana was the chosen field. Alhaji Mashud recounted how as an African, farming came to him naturally. From a humble beginning of only 4 acres, Alhaji Mashud through the support of AfDB designed projects is a full-blown commercial farmer cultivating over a 2,000 ha of maize, soybean and rice.

The Mission team also visited a warehouse complex where commercial agriculture machinery workshop with various machinery were inspected.. In one enclave, one could see poultry, small ruminants, seed demonstration fields for rice and maize, rice processing facilities, blast freezers, among others. According to Alhaji Mashud, “We know we have the potential but did not know how to go about it. But the encouragement from the project, the support, technical backstopping and inspiring challenges we often get from visits like yours, is what drives us to where we are today.” He added, Martin Fregene shared a dream with us which he challenged we achieve in three years. In two years, we are living his dream.”

Mr. Rufus encouraged Alhaji Mashud to do more by adopting modern technology such as the use of drones for monitoring, branding his enterprise, making it attractive and formalizing it so that, he could expand further and open himself for even more direct funding support from the Bank. He commended Alhaji Mashud for such achievement saying “We want to see Africans working away from subsistence to large scale farming. The beauty of your operation will determine whether you are funded or not funded. Whether you can be sustained or not and from what I see, this is a definition of commercial farming”

The Banks Agriculture portfolio in Ghana forms the third largest portfolio with transport leading and governance being second. The performance of the existing Agriculture Projects (SIP, SADEP and the GAFSP additional Financing) are critical to delivering the outcomes set out for the sector.

Mr. Rufus N. Darkotey concluded his visit by meeting and interacting with small holder farmers and encouraged them to adapt best practices and to move from subsistence farming to large scale. In a poignant remark, he said “The development of agribusinesses, value chain addition, transforming what we grow into consumable products that can be traded within the continent to strengthen economies and transform the lives of people is critical. And ensuring that the projects of the AfDB are well designed and implemented to help achieve the goals as earlier indicated is key to collectively ensuring Africa’s development and food security.”

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