 Great honor to welcome you all for this very important session. We will talk about mobilizing finance for agriculture in Africa. And Minister Powell, thank you very much for having taken this initiative because it touches in some way our hearts, the food in Africa. And of course the nexus between food, water and environment is so crucial today that we address the issues. But we look also at the opportunities which Africa offers. We should not forget that two-thirds of the employment in Africa is related to agriculture. And if we look at the area of land which is used in Africa, it's still a minimum of what could be used and the great potential which is available if it provides the necessary support and finance. And Madam Secretary, I am so honored that you come to the World Economic Forum Service here and we are all looking very much forward to your introductory speech. The floor is yours. Thank you so much. Good afternoon everyone and my thanks to Administrator Power and her team. The administrator has been a leading voice on food security on behalf of our administration, including through the Feed the Future initiative. I'm glad to be able to join her President Ruto and President Adesina today. Over the past three years, the successive shocks of COVID-19, Russia's war on Ukraine and extreme climate events have had a devastating impact on food security. Around a tenth of the global population currently faces severe food insecurity. The Food and Agriculture Organization projects there will be about 120 million more chronically undernourished people in 2030 due to the pandemic and war. In coming years, we will face the mounting effects of climate change, new sources of conflict and fragility, and more threats to global health. And each successive shock will exacerbate the underlying drivers of food insecurity. And each will hit harder those who are already food insecure. I know that President Ruto and many other African leaders spoke powerfully about the nexus between climate change, agricultural productivity, and food security at the Africa Climate Summit earlier this month. The impacts of food insecurity on individuals and communities are acute. Hunger and poor nutrition undermine health and educational outcomes and well-being. Food insecurity also has economy-wide impacts, contributing to lower productivity that holds back economic growth. And this means food security matters both morally and for the global economy. The United States has provided nearly $13.5 billion in humanitarian and development assistance since Russia's invasion of Ukraine to address the global food security crisis. We've also helped lead multilateral action. The Black Sea Green Initiative enabled Ukraine to continue exporting grain to low-income food insecure economies. Russia's withdrawal from the initiative is devastating for countries such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, and Yemen, which relied on these shipments, as well as for grain importers anywhere exposed to price volatility caused by Russia's actions. Going forward, we will maintain our strong support for Ukraine, call for Russia to reverse course, and mobilize our partners to take further action. But we must also collectively do more than respond in moments of crisis. We must build resilience to them, and this will reduce the need for future humanitarian assistance. It will support sustainable economic growth. In my remarks today, I'll focus on the need to accelerate investments in food and agricultural systems, particularly by the private sector. I'll emphasize the importance of equipping international financial institutions to deploy additional financing for these investments, and I'll address our longer-term work to evolve the multilateral development banks. Today, fiscal constraints limit too many governments' abilities to make investments that fuel sustainable growth. The private sector can step in to fill this gap. We need private sector investments in technological innovations and to facilitate market access for players across local, national, and regional food and agriculture value chains, including smallholder farmers, producers, distributors, and retailers. Investments in small and medium-sized enterprises, which play a crucial role in these value chains, are particularly key. Of course, governments need to provide favorable policy environments, ones that are predictable, transparent, and incentivize the right kinds of investments. And the Biden administration is supporting this approach through the U.S.-Africa Strategic Partnership on Food Security, which focuses on promoting opportunities for transformative government and private sector investments. Increased investment also depends on leveraging the international financial institutions. We've seen significant progress since international financial institutions came together to launch the IFI Action Plan to address food insecurity in May of 2022. Food security and agriculture-related lending across these institutions increased to almost $15 billion in 2022, and that's an over-60% increase from an annual pre-war average of just over $9 billion. As of June, the World Bank achieved $22 billion in new lending commitments, well surpassing its $12 billion action plan target. And the International Monetary Fund has dispersed $1.8 billion through its food shock window. Going forward, the international financial institutions will continue to play a vital role in strengthening food security through policy advice and supporting countries' investments in sustainable and resilient food systems. We should institutionalize the coordination and coherence that the Action Plan provided, and we're currently working with the international financial institutions to do just that. There are also existing specialized multilateral tools we should leverage. We're proud to be the largest donor to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, which provides much-needed grants, concessional loans, and blended finance, as well as technical assistance to low-income countries and producer organizations. And we're currently working alongside other donors to enhance the program's ability to mobilize and deploy private capital, which will allow it to work more effectively with facilities like the one being launched today. The International Fund for Agricultural Development, focused on alleviating rural poverty in the face of changing climate, is also critical. The Fund has increased rural incomes, expanded production capacities, and improved market access for millions of individuals, over half of whom are women. We're currently working with other fund members toward a successful replenishment. But even focusing on medium and long-term investments in agriculture, in addition to crisis response, is not sufficient. Pandemics lower income. Conflict disrupts supply chains. Climate change poses risks to entire agricultural systems. So combating food insecurity also depends on broader efforts to address these global challenges. And this requires evolving the multilateral development banks, which are a central pillar of our international economic system. We've already made significant progress on reforms related to the World Bank's mission and vision, its incentives, operational model, and financing capacity. And we estimate that the MDB's system could unlock $200 billion in new lending capacity over the next ten years through balance sheet measures that are either already being implemented or under consideration. This additional financing can be directly deployed to advance priorities like food security. And President Biden has requested funding that would enable the bank to provide $27 billion in new resources for projects that address climate change, fragility, and pandemics, some of the core drivers of food insecurity, and to support immediate crisis response in the poorest countries. Well, today's event is an opportunity not just to again highlight the importance of food security, but to renew our commitment to a particular path forward. There will always be crises to which we should respond with timely and substantial assistance. But short-term responses, however effective, will never bring about a world without food insecurity. Short-term assistance can't prevent the next drought or ward off the next pandemic, and challenges will continue to drive food insecurity, threatening the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of those around the world. Supporting individuals and communities depends on thinking longer-term to put in place policies and make investments that build systems and not just storage silos, systems that will allow people around the world to endure coming shocks without going hungry and to live healthy and prosperous lives. Thank you so much. For that very important speech, also underlining the importance of investing in food systems on that climate livelihood. It's also very appreciative that President Ruto of Kenya this evening hosted a very important climate conference for Africa. It's very interesting to see that one-third of the global greenhouse gases come from food and land use, but only 4% of the climate finance. So Mr. President, it's great to see you here and the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this opportunity to share my thoughts with this important gathering and to thank the World Economic Forum for presenting us this opportunity and for all the friends who've come to share these moments with us. Let me thank Bob Brande, President of the World Economic Forum. Maybe it will be World Bank one day for hosting us in this event with wonderful aligns with the most recent turn in Africa's collective thinking about the nexus between investment potential, opportunity, technology and transformation. Secretary Yellen, I have listened very keenly to your statement and with great appreciation for your insightful opening remarks, which points us to the kinds and levels of interest and commitment that will motivate us to engage more deeply with investors to make Africa not only self-sufficient but also a competitive player in global food systems and agricultural value chains, not just for Africa, but to also participate in the global arena. Thank you, Dina Exposito, Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security in the USAID and Deputy Coordinator of Feed the Future for inviting me to take part in this very important event. I further take this opportunity to extend special thanks to the Government of the United States and Norway for their patience, commitment and focus with which they have worked with us on this journey to explore and also pursue the best pathway to agricultural transformation and sustainable food security in our continent. The world, ladies and gentlemen, is grappling with unprecedented challenge global food insecurity of historic proportions precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the profound disruptions in supply chains, widespread unemployment and escalating poverty that have profoundly impacted communities and countries across the globe. These hardships are further combated by the environmental factors, notably the devastating drought in many parts and many parts also suffering from floods at the same time. In Kenya, we've had the worst drought in 40 years. The recent invasion in Ukraine has led to soaring prices of essential commodities such as food, fuel and fertilizer, amplifying the plight of vulnerable countries and communities. Concurrently, the escalating threat of climate change continues to exert immense pressure on our food systems and overall food security. As of the end of 2022, approximately 31.8 million people in East Africa were in dire need of emergency food assistance, including a distressing 6.1 million children under the age of five. However, through our National Drought Management Authority, we have taken substantive measures to alleviate the impact of these adversities. With our drought contingency plan and emergency response, we successfully provided critical assistance to 1.7 million Kenyans investing a total of $150 million with the generous support of many development partners in Kenya, which we appreciate. By 2030, Africa's population will have grown from what we have at the moment about 1.2 billion all the way to almost $2.4 billion, $2.5 billion by 2050. Africa, on the other hand, holds by far the greatest share of unutilized arable land globally. At around 61% of agriculture remains the biggest employer also in the continent, accounting for between 70 and 80% of livelihoods and by far the biggest contributor to the GDPs of many countries. Agricultural productivity in Africa is currently the lowest in the world, with severe implications on nutrition and food security. The numerous cases of hunger constitute a humanitarian crisis, highlighting the anti-utilization of our continent's immense potential for high productivity and surplus food production. In fact, it's a paradox. The account of Africa's starvation amid plenty is parallel to the account of Africa's poverty in the midst of resource abundance and underdevelopment in the middle of huge potential. The people we must feed and give jobs include millions of highly skilled and motivated young people struggling to find opportunities on a continent endowed with the greatest mineral resource wealth and green energy potential anywhere in the world. At the recently concluded Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, the leadership of our continent established a clear consensus regarding the roadmap, navigating from crisis to potential and ultimately to opportunity. This roadmap set out in the Nairobi Declaration makes the case for a win-win collaborative intervention with the global community to unlock sufficient resources to invest in capabilities and technologies with the goal of transforming Africa's abundance of potential into a global surplus production that will not only drive green growth, but also provide shared prosperity. To this, the Nairobi Declaration proscribes the recalibration of the international financial institutions to facilitate debt restructuring, make affordable finance available to low-income countries, and direct large-scale investment to climate-positive and competitive opportunities in Africa, ultimately putting millions of youth to work and produce sustainably for both Africa and the world. The broad principles of the Nairobi Declaration apply to our agriculture and food systems, a sector that has a highly detailed granular data profile that easily defines the opportunities for investors. A case in point, for example, is the agreement we signed yesterday between Kenya and FFI, for FFI to provide green fertilizer using our geothermal energy resources. As part of sorting out the problem and the challenges that have come, our direction because of the conflict in the middle of Europe has constrained supply of fertilizer to our part of the world. I think it was said adversity is the mother of all invention. We're beginning to reimagine how we can not rely on fertilizer from elsewhere, but to begin to think about how we can use our resources to provide not just fertilizer, but green fertilizer that not only expands our food production capacity, but reduces carbon footprint that comes with it. Briefly, enhancing Africa's overall agricultural productivity is a tremendous investment opportunity, which not only feeds Africa and the world, but also employs African youth and increases smallholder incomes. Investment in agriculture in Africa is the surest way to reduce poverty, especially rural poverty, prevail significant GDP growth, and promote strong export performance. It will provide opportunities also to make sure that we create opportunity, we create jobs in our part of the world to stem the unnecessary tide of migration that is fueled by lack of opportunities in different parts of the world. Private investors should contribute at least 75% of the 21.4 billion required for agriculture in Africa to play its transformative role. But that private sector requires sovereigns to de-risk their investment. There needs to be a conversation as to how do we reconfigure, because part of what we agreed in the Africa Climate Summit principally, number one, how do we get the countries that are already in debt distress? How do we support such countries to breathe, to even have the opportunity to think about climate action, about agriculture, and about other things? So extend their tenure, this is our proposal, extend their tenure of sovereign debt, and provide also for maybe a 10-year grace period. Number two, is we need to rethink about the financial markets, the instruments operating in the financial markets, whether they are credit rating agencies, whether it is sovereign debt analysis, and whether it is risk analysis. These are instruments that have not evolved, they remain static, and they continue to assign high risk, even where there is no high risk. And sometimes they even assign low risk where there is high risk. The case in point, and allow me to say this, is the financial crisis in 2007. It came as a result of very high risk having been assigned very low risk, and we ended up in a financial crisis. So there is a need to rethink, to reimagine, and to reconfigure that whole space around the financial markets. And finally, we need to see how we can, as Madam Secretary Yellen said, how we can work with the MDBs, and how we can work with the international financial architecture. Number one, to provide concessional financing for sovereigns. And two, whether we cannot rethink again and see the same way we had a conversation about SDRs to deal with COVID, isn't the time we had a conversation about SDRs to deal with climate change. And this time round, think about it differently, that will give those who need the money the most more money than those who need the money the least. I think these are proposals we have put on the table. We will be having a conversation as we go forward in this forum and in other forums all the way to COP28. The announcement by the governments of the U.S. and Norway of a new multi-donor first-laws fund with a target of U.S. dollars 200 million, designed to unlock hundreds of millions more in financing for Africa Agri SMEs is a very welcome development. I think they deserve it. In Kenya, we recognize the power MSMEs as catalysts for bottom-up transformation programs. This understanding has led to the establishment of a dedicated ministry that focuses on formulating optimal strategies, as was said, that we need proper policies that promote instruments that promote skills, training and capacity building. Our aim is to ensure that financial models such as cooperative societies and various financial inclusion funds, including the well-known Hasla fund, I discussed this with Samantha when she was in Nairobi, facilitate economic participation for a significant number of informal sector people, farmers, traders, business people, particularly small-holder farming households, youth and women. We are eager and prepared to discuss and explore ways to attract private investment for small and medium-sized agricultural businesses, the larger employers, the largest actually employers in our continent. These enterprises are critical to supporting our farmers and delivering safe, nutritious food for our people. The potential impact of private sector investment is simply immense and we hope we can work together to unlock that space. For instance, let me give a few examples. Synergy, a company converting waste into fertilizer, fuel and animal feed, is set to expand its production, benefiting 10,000 farmers and creating 300 new jobs. Sunculture, a U.S. solar irrigation company, plans to expand its pay-as-you-go model, making technology accessible to over 10,000 farmers. In addition, Del Monte, investment of US$5.5 million in a fresh fruit packaging facility and sourcing from 2,000 Kenyan farmers, showcases the kind of interventions needed by farmers, as well as farmers across Africa in technology and other areas. I know I've run out of time, just give me a minute. You're able to vote the House, Mr. President. I'm not just speaking for myself, I'm speaking for 1.4 billion people. I am pleased to announce that Kenya is fully prepared to collaborate with partners and investors, particularly in the agricultural sector, and we are actively working to cultivate a conducive environment for investment. We're doing this not just in Kenya, but across our region. As you are aware, we've already consolidated our region into one single market under the Africa continental free trade area that is already beginning to trade amongst ourselves and to make it easier for investors to find their way into our continent and to work with us without barriers, without roadblocks, that makes it easier for all of us to work together. Finally, there is so much to say and to celebrate about the exciting possibilities that are being opened up and created in this forum, as well as commitments that both our friends in the US and Norway are leading the way into the future with others, which we hope they will come along and they will look forward to working together. The private sector in that case should look, as an example, to the inspiration given by both these two great friends to mobilize quickly to reap the first mover advantage in a brave new world of African agricultural transformation, I think. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you for your leadership. We'll have a little bit of a change of the seen-hair nose. We will have a three-minutes video from USAID, and then we will hear from the two leaders that put the money on the table for the agriculture and the food system. So, please stay seated. I'm told there will be a video, and then we'll introduce the next panel. OK. I've got an important role to play in Zambia. These are the backbone of the nation. In Africa, small and medium agricultural businesses are the continent's largest employer. They play a crucial role in supporting small-holder farmers and helping communities feed themselves. My name is Sylvia Banda. I'm the managing director for Sylva Group of Companies. It is the reparator that we chose to be working with very small farmers. Our relationship with them is very, very, very good because we feel we are connected to them. We are paying them. We empowered them. Because of businesses like Sylvia's, small-holder farmers in Zambia can connect their crops to larger markets, bringing food costs down while increasing supply. Farming is actually the stronghold for the Zambian economy. And if every farmer can maximize their capacities of farming, I think Zambia would be a better place economically. My name is Judith Mwela. I'm a Zambian. I live in Losaka in Chilanga District, where I live on a farm. When we met with Sylvia, we spoke and she showed interest in the products. And she started buying off all my products. So I was encouraged. She provided a market for me, and I was excited about that. Despite the crucial role they play, three out of four small and medium agricultural enterprises across Africa cannot access bank loans, yet are too large to access microfiners, creating a hundred billion dollar gap in financing that leaves businesses like Sylvia's behind. Bridging this gap is critical. These businesses can change the lives of farmers and their families. And across the continent, they can drive economic growth, create jobs and fight hunger and poverty. But we need to help these businesses access the financial resources they need to thrive. Governments must partner with banks and investment funds to support this crucial sector together and help entrepreneurs like Sylvia and farmers like Judith feed the future. We feel that we are lifting them up so that together we can all be proud of what we have done. Thank you. Now we're coming to the first of the panels. We'll have Samantha Power, the administrator of USAID with us. We have a development minister from Norway, Annabelle Tvindelheim, with us. And we have the moderator, Rebecca Anonshong, founder and CEO of Apps Tech. Very much looking forward to also hear the story about this investment and we'll reconvene in Davos, I told the president, where we will then come with additional pledges from other countries too, I hope. Well, thank you very much. We only have 20 minutes. And so much to say, right? So I'm going to start with you, Administrator Power. So normally when we talk about when we think about PPP, we're thinking about big companies and governments and big governments. But as we saw in the video, we're looking at, you know, at agriculture and we're dealing mostly with small businesses. How are you trying to support these small businesses? Great. Thank you. Well, first, thanks to Secretary Yellen and the whole W, the WEP crew who joined with us and showed such enthusiasm, because I think they see that this is a small beginning. But it is a bold and very, very tailored initiative. This is going to be important. We're going to remember, like, the launch today. Because... Now, just because Ruto was here and compelling, and we are, and the video set this, or the videos and videos, this has been a big gap. We all have to acknowledge that you mentioned the bigger companies. USA, from the time we started Feat of Future, really wise people recognize that the private sector has to be at the heart of Feat of Future. And public private share partnerships, just as you said, have defined and animated Feat of Future will begin. But the examples we have are, you know, let's get smaller farmers to be part of Walmart's supply chain. Let's set, you know, match-make between Rwandan growers of coffee and Starbucks, PepsiCo. Let's see if they could be interested in some of the chickpea farmers that we work with out in rural areas, and maybe that could service some of the healthy and more nutritious snacks that they're making. And it's worked. I mean, Feat of Future has brought down poverty and malnutrition 25% in the areas that it's working. But it's only working in the areas that it's working. And, you know, in those same areas were indigenous entrepreneurs, agro-businesses that had all kinds of potential, but there was that gap. And that's what this is about. This is about this gap where they just sort of fall through the cracks. They're too big, these SMEs, to get access to microfinance, but they're too small to really be able to make it at the bank, at the big banks, and pay those, you know, expensive capital rates. And so this is really aiming to come in, and, yeah, we'll start with our $35 million, and your $35 million will raise with WEF's help and Klausen Burgess' help. We will raise that $200 million, and we'll get this up there. But what we really want, we want the proof of concept. We want, in building this first-loss facility, the president was talking about de-risking and making it more attractive for cheaper capital to be brought in, for these individuals and these small companies to be able to access that cheaper capital, if we can show that it is working, this is a sector that needed more attention than it has been getting, and this is the beginning of tailoring that attention. And imagine what it would mean, you know, when you think about who are these agribusinesses, right? These are the people who might be transporting the products from point A to point B, or bringing them to market. It might be the people that are providing the seeds and the fertilizer, or even some of the extension services that might once have been done by the state. Scaling that, you know, turns a smallholder farmer into an entrepreneur, into a business person. It changes everything. That means money for school for the kids. It means not imagining another subsistence farmer, the next generation. So this idea, and I really have to give credit to my sister here who was, you know, stewing on this and thinking about, you know, something bold and ambitious in this niche, but I think in coming together and in naming a structural gap, that if we filled, President Ruto talked about all the arable land that goes untilled. And we know that the performance at this point is suboptimal because we see it in all the land that could be producing that isn't. We see it in all the young people who could be working in agribusinesses if they could expand in the way that many of these entrepreneurs, like the one you just saw up on the screen, would love to expand, but just can't get the capital. And so how many young people with these youth bulge, you know, could be helping design marketing plans and running social media campaigns and also bridging some of the rural urban divides that exist in so many countries these days. So this is a big idea trapped now in a medium-sized initiative. So we want to take this big idea and first we need to hear a lot more from the African farmers themselves, from the agribusinesses, from the African leaders and learn about how to tailor, what's the best way to prioritize when you can't do everything. But we think it's a big idea to take the form of a very big initiative. But real thanks to Norway for making this possible, giving us an excuse to move things a little more quickly at USA than we're used to doing. So thank you for that. And thank you for the question, but this is different, right? It's not the Walmarts and the Starbucks. It's agribusinesses that are Kenyan and the knowledge of the land comes from Kenya and the knowledge of where the next big opportunity lies is Kenyan and following that lead and that kind of partnership is going to be so important. And one thing about it's not microfinance and it's so nice to hear for once that we're not talking about African women in agriculture and microfinance because we need the real money, not the micro money. And so I love the fact that this is looking at financing agriculture in a different way. And I'd like to know how is it different? Now, from a technical standpoint, how is this financing instrument different from the ones we've seen before other than the size, right? Other than the amount, how are we structuring it differently than what we've seen before? Oh, I'm sorry and I'm asking you, but I'm ministered. Thank you. First of all, let me say I'm so excited about this instrument. Firstly, of course, because this is one of the solutions to a problem that we have seen increased since 2014 which is the increasing food insecurity of the world. But also, because we know that the ag sector is, should be, can be the motor of economic growth in Africa. And we've seen so, there are so many lost opportunities when we have not invested in the value chains, the local and the regional value chains. We know that there are 33 million small-scale farmers in Africa. Most of them are only producing for their own families. At the same time, the African continent imports at least 50 billion US dollars worth of foodstuffs every year, imagine the possibility for job creation and for economic growth. So this is really, really exciting. Now to your question, how does this differ? Well, like Samantha said, we have detected a gap where some agri SMEs fall between the cracks. What we are doing is that we are putting up a fund that will support investment funds that again, in turn, invest in agri SMEs. And these investment funds are, they have the knowledge on the ground of the region, of the sector. They are able to detect the SMEs that can grow at scale but are still too small to get the capital from the banks. And it can also provide knowledge, technology transfer, giving strategic advice to the SMEs in questions. So it really is filling a gap. And the FASA fund will be, we provide donor money. So this is a way of de-risking private capital, making sure that donor capital can co-finance investments and take potential first loss. And the idea behind that, I mean, we've seen, we've had these kinds of mechanisms before. I mean, so people would ask, what's new? We've done it in other sectors. We do a lot of it in energy, but we know that the risk in the ag sector is considered very high. And this mechanism provides first loss money from donor capital to a sector that has been, if I may say, to a certain extent neglected. So the investments are planned to be between about 200,000 US dollars and 5 million dollars. And so that's the gap that you're trying to address. That's what we detected when we started working on this mechanism. And then so what would be next? What's next for the FASA fund? What's the next step? You said 35 million each. Yeah. It's a good start, but it's not enough. It's not enough. So what's the next step? Well, the next step now is to find a fund manager. So any interested organizations out there, you know, there will be a call for proposals. And then, of course, we need to scale up the investment. And like Belgi Brenda said, up to Davos, we're thinking, you know, really pushing it up during the next few months, getting more interested donors on the table because there are lots of opportunities out there in the African ag sector. Great. And the timing. So you said before Davos, but what's your time? We're setting it up now. Then we are inviting more donors on board. So no time to lose. So administrator power, let's talk about impact. Tell us about how you perceive the real impact on the ground of the FASA fund. I mean, I think as my colleague was saying, we have programs like this. And, you know, you can even see it. None of us want a little microfinance. I mean, we see what microfinance can unlock for the small-scale farmer, often the female small-scale farmer. But what we, I think, have done, and maybe you could say in different places, have dabbled in and that we're now trying to centralize and brand and make a thing that people can rally around is this broader approach that centers on SME agribusinesses that are themselves the vehicles by which those small-scale farmers, again, can scale what they're doing, can expand their businesses. And it's not as if these longings don't exist, you know, in the small-scale farmer potentially, about how much more land they think they could grow if they only had X or they only had Y. But also in the SMEs that already exist about how they see, you know, how much more they could be doing to, you know, work with processors to take crops and turn them into fruit juices or, you know, into products on the value chain and a very different part of the value chain or, you know, what it would take to have more efficient transportation and how much that could support efforts to widen the profit margins for the small-scale farmers, for the middlemen and for the agribusinesses. So the demands are all out there. I think what we have to work through is does it make sense to launch this in a couple countries first? You know, how do we grow the fund? You know, we are incentivizing investment funds by saying that we will bear this first loss. Is that enough? You know, I mean, these conversations are now going to take hold. We have the great Scott Nathan here from DFC, the Development Finance Corporation, who in his panel may get to speak to some of this because DFC has done so much, actually, in the food security space by making a dedicated push under his leadership and President Biden's leadership. So, but I think what's cool about having development agencies involved as well is that, you know, we're also there. I mean, this is the kind of thing we've been doing for some time, is helping farmers get their goods to market, helping them write business plans, helping them think about social media and what their market share is and this and that. So, you know, as SMEs then get access to cheaper capital, get to pursue some of their growth dreams and proposals, we're right there with them as well with that Feed the Future expertise. So I think that also might set this apart from a more traditional investment fund that lives apart from the public sector and that can be, at its best, the magic of the public-private. So what would you want this room to leave with? What do you want them to remember when they leave? It depends if it's the people with money or the people with enthusiasm. Both, right? Spread the word, I think. I mean, this has come together pretty quickly. We're really excited about the partnership with WEF. I think that already puts us in a position, you know, we're government officials to benefit from incredible expertise. USAID already has a fantastic partnership with WEF on trade facilitation, a global alliance for trade facilitation that could work a little bit like this. I mean, in that instance, their network of companies tell them what's getting in the way of trade, including agricultural trade. We, USAID, are working probably with Norway and a lot of the places in the regulatory space on customs, on domestic resource mobilization. We learn from WEF's network of companies what is needed in order for those barriers to come down and for trade to increase. It's like, again, we're there doing the kind of wonky public sector stuff. They're learning what's actually happening in the real world that's diminishing the impact on livelihoods. And so we think both in terms of actually investing in this fund with their vast network, knowing, again, that others will be bearing first loss, but also being out in the world and helping us identify where the greatest potential exists for agribusinesses, which agribusinesses are going to raise their hands, you know, at the non-local level, and then how do we use our collective leverage to find those local players that are just ready bursting with ideas and potential and just missing that break that we hope this can give them. Madam Minister, any final words from you? Well, you know, we know that we need all hands on deck to solve the great challenges of our time, which is food insecurity, climate reaching the estuaries. And as donors, we recognize that the private sector perceives a high risk. There is a high risk in investing in some of these markets, but we know that the opportunities are there. And, you know, by introducing mechanisms like this and, you know, saying that we will continue, like Samantha says, to continue to work on framework conditions on the policies, but also being in there for the long haul with partnerships to take down the risk in the actual markets that can actually improve lives and livelihoods. So let's just get the job done. Yes. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. And to be clear, it's FASSA, Financing for Agricultural SMEs in Africa Fund. FASSA. FASSA! And there are brochures, right? There's a table with the brochures right by the door. So when you leave, please grab one, and it'll tell you a lot more about the program. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much to Samantha and Anaviata for your leadership. And we have a minister, Hassan, from Canada here with us, too, Development Minister. And he's very eager on this. I spoke to him earlier today about agriculture. So you might have someone joining your club already for Davos. So he has a budget of 8 billion annually, so just so you know, I looked it up. So President Adesina, African Development Bank, Scott Nathan, the CEO of the Development Finance Corporation, DFC, also very powerful, and founder and CEO of Acumen, Jacqueline Novogratz. Jacqueline? Yes, that's what I thought. Please, join me here. No, no, you're... Thank you. We continue to keep the great momentum, and I think we're really all excited about this. And I was thinking that, you know, this is the day also that the Secretary General has called for the SDGs today and tomorrow. And I don't think there is any examples of countries moving out of poverty, eradicating poverty without also having successful when it comes to food production and agriculture. You have to increase the productivity and you have to also have food systems that do work. And the opportunities in Africa are just great. 61% of the non-cultivated but arable land in the world is still in Africa. So coming to you first President Adesina, you also have resources, economic resources in African Development Bank. Where do you see this initiative and how do you see unlocking the necessary investments in agriculture as also the Norwegian Development Minister was saying? You know, some of these farmers are too big to be microfinanced, but they are then too small to be part of the normal scheme. But they can in the future be really amazing food producers, great for livelihood, and also creating all the jobs for the youth bulge. Well, thank you very much, Bende. It's good to see you. And thank you, Professor Klaus. And thank you for all of the Web family. It's good to be here. And congratulations to Arun Siddharth of Samantha and my dear sister and Beth on the launch of the FASA. So I think the first thing I want to say is that FASA needs to be fast tracked. So we can scale it up. But you know, congratulations to you because this is a very key area, of course, because agriculture, if you look at the size of the food and ag market in Africa by 2030, it's going to be what? $1 trillion. So that's really where the wealth is. And I used to be Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria way back before I became President of the Bank. And so this is all music to my ears because I've always said it. But the billionaires of Africa are not going to come out of oil and gas sector. They're going to come from the food and agricultural sector. You don't smoke gas. You don't drink oil. But everybody eats food three times a day, right? So food is the place. Now, when you also look at it, you're good, right? You know, and agriculture is very cool. Anyway, it's a very sexy, cool profession. But I also think that the thing to bear in mind is how we cascade all of this within the bigger picture of what's the goal, what's the vision of Africa when it comes to agriculture. President Ruto was talking about the fact that agriculture, I mean, Africa has 65% of the arable land left to feed the world. Well, potential is fine. Well, nobody eats it, right? They've got to be able to unlock that potential. And we are doing that at the bank in three ways that I would like this initiative to help to fit into and help to scale up. First is Secretary Yellen talked about the case of the Russia's war in Ukraine and what I meant for food security in Africa. At the African Development Bank, we very quickly launched a $1.5 billion initiative to make sure that Africa can feed itself. It's not about buying in for food. It's about getting seeds in the ground in your bowl and actually growing your own food. And it's working extremely well. Today we are supporting 24 million farmers to produce 38 million medic tons of food, valued at $12 billion. And by the way, that is eight million medic tons of food more than what Africa will lose from importing from either Russia or Ukraine. So it's all about Africa having the pride and the dignity of producing the food itself. It can. There's no reason why it shouldn't. So that one is there. And that is working in about 34 countries. And this initiative to cascade into a bigger agenda. And you were there in Senegal when we had a Feed Africa Summit. And USCID was there, also Samantha was there. And what were we trying to do? We were basically trying to say, okay, all these farmers, the small businesses, agro dealers, seed companies, fertilizer companies and all of that, how do we bring them together under a plan to make sure Africa can become self-sufficient in food? Look, as far as I'm concerned, Africa may not be able to make manufactured airplanes, so that's fine. But there's absolutely no reason why Africa cannot feed airplanes with food all across this world. What Africa does with agriculture is going to determine the future of food in the world. We can't do that if we don't have a plan to finance it. And so what we did was we brought together our heads of state and government. We had 34 heads of state and government, we've got a president of Ireland joined us for four days, came with his wife as well, which is cool for us to have. And we put together food and agriculture delivery compacts. Those compacts essentially set out how are we going to make sure that Africa becomes totally self-sufficient, unlocks its food potential in agriculture. In five years, we can't be running around this cycle for another 10, 15 years. Okay, now the good part of it is that we were able to raise $72 billion to support 44 countries to be able to implement that food and our cultural delivery compacts. And many of you are here that are also supporting that. So again, I'm trying to say Samantha, the big officer, we can cascade it and take it to scale within this bigger agenda that we are actually working on in Africa. And the last thing I want to say on this is Samantha was talking about the seed companies, fertilizer companies and all of those that you're fund would be doing yes. But many of the times that most of the times that lending gets done in agriculture, it gets done in an open platform. So you're lending to somebody producing tomatoes and then you're not lending somebody buying a tomato, so it rots on the field. You have a better transaction cost in that makes it very, very difficult. So what we are doing, ifad is here with Islamic Development Bank, we've launched a $1.6 billion effort on special agro-industrial processing zones. So in that sense these are new agricultural zones that I enable with power, water, roads, infrastructure, digital things and get companies there. So you transpose the food and our companies from the urban areas where they are all there and there are no farms there into these rural areas that I enable with infrastructure. Well what's happened to this initiative and commercial financing is as follows. First, the lending would be done in a close model because you're lending to somebody to maintain transport, you're lending to somebody that's storing, you should lend to somebody that's processing food, you have lent to somebody that is connected to the value chain. Therefore the risk of loss, it's very low. I mean when I was running an agriculture in Nigeria people used to tell me, oh if you lend to agriculture you lose money. Well, I brought together 20 chief risk officers of all the banks in Nigeria and I asked them give me the probability distribution that you will lose money. They said 90% will lose money. I said well if we de-risked you and we had a first loss arrangement and we fixed the agricultural value chains end to end what would be your loss rate? Somebody said 10%, well everybody shouted them down and said no, it can't be more than 5%. Here's what I want to say and to encourage you Samantha and to go big. We ran a first loss program with the Central Bank of Nigeria, $350 million. We leveraged $3.5 billion. Four years, non-performing loss, less than 1%. Okay, less than 1%. And we were able to raise expand the share of bank lending that went to these agribusinesses and agricultural enterprises from 0.7% to 5%. So I think that basically all I'm trying to say is there are a lot of opportunities to cascade this, what you're doing. The experience on the ground to say that we can actually use this. And I want to highly commend both Nuret, the minister and also Samantha for this effort. Let's cascade it in what's there and I'm sure that we can really make it to really work at scale. So congratulations again. Thank you. Thank you President Adesina. I know Scott Naitan, you're the head of the DFC. I know that you're also very much into this undertaking. I know that the DFC has already invested a lot on in food security. So it's interesting to see what are your plans. Will you deliver as the two ministers already have indicated or? Well, thanks for setting expectations so high. Thank you for having me here today. Thanks to the World Economic Forum for the convening and especially congratulations to Norway and my colleagues at USAID. Samantha and I see Isabel Coleman in the audience as well. Great partners for the Development Finance Corporation and this is a fantastic initiative. We're really pleased to be able to be here to join in this meeting. It's great to be on the stage with Jacqueline, a member of our Development Advisory Committee and a close partner in the Development Finance World. So thank you. Really, the Development Finance Corporation is all about mobilizing capital to the private sector. That's our mission and initiatives like FASA, which are about shifting risk in order to help mobilize the kind of tools that we love to take advantage of. We do invest in investment funds. Samantha mentioned that. I mean, a great example is One Acre, a fund that's bringing financing for logistics into smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. They're reaching one and a half million farmers right now. We think that they're going to be able to more than double that in short order. We've put in 20 million into that. They should be able to take advantage of this facility and then they'll reach even more. It's the kind of thing that at DFC and at other Development Finance Institutions, this kind of leverage is really what matters to be able to have even a modest amount of money, but this is a great start. It allows a huge amount of leverage for the private sector. We support financial institutions all over the continent, all over the world who are lending to smallholder farmers who are working about not just helping with fertilizer, fuel seeds in the ground, but also logistics. I completely agree that wastage is one of the hidden taxes on this issue that causes food insecurity. So the extent that we can work on coal chain logistics storage. We're doing that in India. We're doing that all over Africa. But as you mentioned in the current environment with food insecurity after Russia's terrible invasion, further invasion of Ukraine, we pledged as the Development Finance Corporation to increase our food security investments to one billion dollars over five years. And I'm really pleased to announce tonight for the first time as we're getting close to our fiscal year that we've met that goal already. We've met it in two years instead of two years. This is a big focus for us. And as we work on fine tuning our institution, agriculture food security is one of our top priorities and we're organizing our team around that. Our goal is to do it again. We're hoping in the next few years to do another billion in food security working with innovative projects like this that we're celebrating and announcing today is a great way to do that. So thanks again for having me. So if I heard you right you pledged another billion here now. We will definitely do another billion and I hope we'll be in the next couple of years. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Jacqueline, I know you have been very much into entrepreneurs and innovation. And we're seeing the side-cast in Africa more young people are getting into agriculture and they use different tools than the previous farmers. They use iPads, they use technology and AI for optimizing fertilizers and all this. So from your viewpoint how much you think entrepreneurship and innovation will play a role in food security in the years to come? Well thanks and it's really wonderful to be here with my wonderful colleagues who I've known for a very long time and Administrative Power and Isabelle and USAID and Norway. I love what you are doing. It is so critical and I clearly am someone who believes that entrepreneurs have to actually drive so many of our solutions and that means we have to make markets work, particularly for low income people who have been overlooked and underestimated for too long. I run an organization called Acumen and for 22 years we've been investing across the spectrum of capital. So from very early stage angel investing through what we call patient capital, fully philanthropic backed, 10 to 15 year investments in entrepreneurs that are trying to solve big problems of poverty across agriculture, energy education, healthcare, although agriculture is becoming a much larger part of what we do our 150 odd companies have conservatively impacted over a half billion people so we've had a front row seat to what it actually takes to go into broken markets and support entrepreneurs to help build new real opportunities and sometimes create overall systems. What I love about the first loss is not only that it makes some capital available but it really crowds in a lot of private sector capital which the entrepreneurs need so desperately. And I would say as you're looking at structuring it's so important to accompany those entrepreneurs along their journeys through an ecosystem approach. We start many times with a fellowship Acumen Academy Accelerators that help home entrepreneurs business plans. We have an Acumen Angel, Buffy, Okeke, Ojiwako from Nigeria who built a business plan called essentially Zebra Crop House and it has created a network of houses to enable smallholder farmers almost all women to become more resilient to climate crisis and have storage facilities. It's really early days and we don't know if they'll succeed or fail but we can help them actually build. They're using a lot of smart pads etc but it's really the business model it's helping them with talent it's helping them actually see with the other business models and connect them to an ecosystem then we've built something called the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund it's essentially a $60 million fund that might be instructive to describe because it started with 50% first loss that allowed us to crowd in the private capital on top but it has a side by side $7 million technical assistance facility not just for management assistance but to help build the kind of tools you're talking about so that farmers can communicate to one another to the company, measure their impact in ways that have been game changing. When you think about then therefore the patient capital and the growth capital that RF the Resilient Fund provides there's probably no better than a company called Ethio Chicken. These stories are long term which is also an important piece of it this is a 13 year story we started off with our patient capital we were the first institutional investor in Ethio Chicken in Ethiopia when it was two guys who never really held a live chicken in his life but they had this big audacious dream that they were going to take on the Ethiopian chicken industry which was fundamentally broken the first institutional investor we accompanied them with our social capital, our networks our access to grant financing in some terms and helped them build a business model to reach millions of people across Ethiopia and then the for profit impact fund with the first last capital was able to scale it and just to give you an indication of how these tiny beginnings can really grow, Ethio is now in six African countries on its way to 10 under different names, mostly Izuma including Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana Cote d'Ivoire Uganda and this year has employed 2,000 rec staff members, 16,000 agents who buy 50 million day old chicks that they sell to millions of farmers who this year have chickens that will produce 55 billion eggs so if you're looking at agricultural resilience you are looking at significant income across a wide network of people, Ethiopia credits this single company for helping to reduce childhood malnutrition by 11% to your point 16,000 entrepreneurs most of whom make more than $10,000 a year already and I am hoping an African unicorn but it started literally with us putting in a couple hundred thousand dollars embedding on two entrepreneurs who may or may not have made it thank you we have two minutes left for the whole panel 15 seconds I just think that we one, I just think what you're doing is glorious number two what we need is capital yes, we also need to take a different approach to how we accompany our entrepreneurs and build ecosystems and one of the things we're proud of with World Economic Forum is to be part of the Global Social Entrepreneurs Alliance because you said it it will take all of us and capital is one part of it but entrepreneurs I believe are the solution thank you as you know, the social entrepreneurs mean a lot to us our chairperson, Hilda Schwab is here on the front row too, so President Adesina and Scott you have one minute each for closing remarks go ahead I'll be more brief than even a minute I again want to congratulate Norway and USAID on this innovative program but we need to set our ambitions even higher take this project bigger, have more projects it's what we're trying to do at our institution, the problem is very solvable and we only can do that through working with entrepreneurs, working locally with these kind of innovative structures to draw on capital so thank you, it's really great to be a part of today thank you thank you very much, I just want to say that what Jackie was saying about the youth is so important but I hope that this initiative will help to do that and we are launching from the bank, in fact we've launched what's called Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks but our new financial institutions in Africa that will ensure that we have access to the kind of capital you're talking about and support the business of young people in the life cycle model so this can actually help to do risk a lot of the financing that goes to many of those ones and lastly you can't talk agriculture in Africa without women because they run it, women run Africa so basically we have a program at the bank which I again want to plug into this which is the Affirmative Finance Action for Women where we have actually mobilizing five billion dollars for women businesses, most of those are going to be in the agriculture sector so I think we should try and make sure that this is also something that tax and supports women and also supports quite a lot the young people in agriculture but kudos to you and we'll be there to work with you and also hopefully I'll be like Nathan, I'll look at money I can put into it as well thank you very much women through the panel we are at 7 o'clock perfect on the job you're a Swiss organization we need to be on Swiss time too but I think this has been a really a great session, I felt that I was part of something important and I can see also on orders that we felt we were part of something that can have very positive consequences not only for Africa but the world and that's the way it should be so big thank you to the Norwegian minister to also administrator power and to this great panel so have a good evening well done thank you