The African Development Bank, the African Union-NEPAD and their partners launch the African Agribusiness Search Engine, funded by the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA)

The African Agribusiness Search Engine will take care of identifying investment and financing opportunities in agriculture and agribusiness

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea, June 13, 2019/ -- The African Development Bank ( www.AfDB.org ) and the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA), a multi-donor trust fund financed by Japan and the Austria, on Wednesday 12 May, officially launched the African Agribusiness Industry Search Engine (AABE), subsidized by FAPA.

The Fund provides grants for technical assistance activities in Africa and is one of the components of the Enhanced Private Sector Assistance (EPSA) initiative under the Bank's auspices.

The African agribusiness search engine will identify opportunities for investment and finance in agriculture and agribusiness and will focus on Mozambique, Zambia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Kenya. The project will be implemented by Grow Africa and placed under the supervision of the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa's Development (AUDA-NEPAD). One of the expected results of the search engine is the presentation of pre-approved agreements with leading continental partners during the Africa Investment Forum which will take place from November 11 to 13 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to Jennifer Blanke, Vice President of the African Development Bank in charge of agricultural, human and social development, "the launch of the search engine of the African agribusiness industry is important, because private financing is essential for the progress of the sector. agriculture in the value chain and for Africa to start feeding itself, before feeding the planet. »

The African Development Bank is building an integrated portfolio of activities that generates and activates investments for agribusinesses and agricultural SMEs to be financed, in the continent's priority value chains. It is essential to enable inclusive finance in the agro-food sector and to develop market access for SMEs and smallholders.

AUDA-NEPAD Regional Integration, Infrastructure and Trade Program Manager Symerre Gray-Johnson said it was appropriate to host the African Agribusiness Search Engine in NEPAD and that it "clearly demonstrates excellent cooperation between NEPAD and FAPA. »

He also reaffirmed his interest in the Bank's second Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg.

Shinichi Isa, Parliamentary Deputy Minister of Finance and Governor of the African Development Bank for Japan, expressed the recognition and approval of the project by the Japanese government. He expressed his belief in the importance of technical assistance and its influence on capacity building, given previous experiences with funding and development projects.

The specific objectives of the African agribusiness search engine are to build market intelligence and set up country-level business intelligence for priority value chains, and to develop value chain platforms for search engines. with a stream of proposals from innovative and bankable agricultural SMEs. Through these objectives, the project will identify opportunities for commercial investments in strategic commodity value chains and present a reliable pipeline of bankable projects that can quickly find financial investment.

Also participating in this official launch were governors and representatives of African and foreign governments, as well as senior managers of the Bank, including the Vice-President in charge of Finance, Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala.