Group items tagged

The Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department of the African Development Bank Group (OSAN) is responsible for Bank's assistance in Agriculture and natural resources management in the Regional Member Countries. This assistance includes environmental concerns, promoting agro-industries development, enhancing production, productivity and competitiveness. The Department provides technical and managerial services as well as technical quality assurance to ensure development effectiveness of Bank financed interventions in Agriculture and related areas on the continent . In 2010, the African Development Bank Group started implementing its current Agriculture Sector Strategy (AgSS) covering the period 2010 - 2014. The strategy aims primarily at contributing to the broader development objectives of greater and sustained agricultural productivity, food security and poverty reduction. The strategy was designed with the view of enhancing Bank interventions through more focused, selective and innovative activities. These activities covered areas such as: i) rural infrastructure, including water management and storage, and trade - related capacities for access to local and regional markets; and ii) natural resource management. The strategy also supported selected research initiatives and a wide range of capacity building programs, with distinct features of gender sensitivity, with particular emphasis on fully mainstreaming gender appropriat ely on more than 50% of projects, and ensuring that a similar scope of beneficiaries are women. The Bank recently concluded a Mid-term Review of the AgSS (2010-2014), and will soon commence work on the new Agriculture Strategy to cover the period 2015-2019,and it will be formulated in line with the Bank's Ten Year Strategy ( TYS:2013-2022).OSAN therefore seeks to recruit a junior consultant to assist in : data collection,analysis, research,results reporting and support for the preparation of an approach for the new Strategy.

"Ratings for the Agriculture Support Services Project for Tunisia were as follows: outcomes were moderately unsatisfactory, risk to development outcome was significant, Bank performance was moderately unsatisfactory, and Borrower performance was moderately unsatisfactory. Some lessons learned included: the benefits of a comprehensive project design can be outweighed by complexity, difficulty in implementation, and resources being spread too thin, even in a middle-income country like Tunisia. The effectiveness of complex projects implemented by multiple actors can be undermined unless the project management unit (or its parent agency) has sufficient authority to proactively coordinate key implementation agencies. Attempts to move from public to private provision of services can be undermined if there is not sufficient attention to beneficiary, needs, perceptions, and incentives, both for producers and service providers. Lack of ownership of producer associations by farmers limits their utility in providing farmers with inputs, access to services and inserting their interests into agricultural policy."

"This report highlights the great potential of the agribusiness sector in Africa by drawing on experience in Africa as well as other regions. This evidence demonstrates that good policies, a conducive business environment, and strategic support from governments"

"Contrary to conventional economic theories, the relationship between income growth and agricultural employment is extremely diverse, even among regions starting from similar levels of development, such as Asia and Africa. Due to its labor-intensive green revolution and strong farm-nonfarm linkages, Asia's development path is mostly characterized by fast growth with relatively slow agricultural exits. In contrast to Asia, urban biased policies, low rural population density, and high rates of population growth have led a number of African countries down a path of slow economic growth with surprisingly rapid agricultural exits. Despite this divergence both continents now face daunting employment problems. Asia appears to be increasingly vulnerable to rising inequality, slower job creation, and shrinking farm sizes, suggesting that Asian governments need to refocus on integrating smallholders and lagging regions into increasingly commercialized rural and urban economies. Africa, in contrast, has yet to achieve its own green revolution, which would still be a highly effective tool for job creation and poverty reduction. However, the diversity of its endowments and its tighter budget constraints mean that agricultural development strategies in Africa need to be highly context specific, financially sustainable, and more evidence- based"

"The African Development Bank (AfDB) was showcased as the knowledge broker and the emerging learning hub for Africa at a recent international e-learning conference in Berlin. The 2012 Online Educa Conference in Berlin was not just a conference, it was an event. Offering a unique environment for international networking, it is the place to discover and absorb some of the world's most innovative thinking about education and technology. The event attracts and brings together experts in the vanguard of technology-enhanced learning from around the world. "

The REDD+ Monitoring, and Measurement, Reporting and Verification workshop "Training the Trainers" will be held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from 6-10 February 2017, and will cover Francophone Africa. The workshop is jointly organized by GFOI partners who include World Bank FCPF, FAO/UN-REDD, Wageningen University, and GOFC-GOLD. It is the last in the series of four regional workshops, and will be held in French. The aim of the workshop is to demonstrate the use available training materials and tools covering topics including designing and implementing a national forest inventory, calculating emissions from forest degradation, the use of remote sensing change-detection tools to for deforestation monitoring, and generating IPCC compliant data. As part of the GOFC-GOLD partnership, START supported the training by facilitating the participation of two GOFC-GOLD Networks from Africa-the West Africa Regional Network (WARN) and the Miombo Land Use Land Change Network-in a similar training in September 2016. http://start.org/programs/gofc-gold For additional information on the program, please contact Senay Habtezion at shabtezion@start.org.

The key messages in this brief are as follows: 1) Engineering can help Africa unlock its huge potential for economic growth and development and make faster progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. 2) However, there is a serious lack of engineering capacity in Africa and heavy reliance on imported expertise in engineering. 3) Higher education institutions need to change their approach to teaching engineering so that graduates are creative problem-solvers. Engineering courses also need to be oriented towards market and development needs. 4) Women are under-represented in engineering education, constituting less than 10 percent of the student population in Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe in 2010. 5) Few African countries have established a robust accreditation system. In addition to improving national accreditation, regional accreditation of engineering professionals should be encouraged so that engineers have greater mobility within Africa. 6) A proposed World Bank initiative, the Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET) will build capacity for technical, vocational and higher education in African countries.

"The Agriculture Economist will assist the AFTA 1 Sector Manager in delivery of the unit's work program, assurance of quality, interaction with internal and external clients, including the private sector, staff development and partnerships. The primary responsibility of the Agriculture Economist will be to provide technical and strategic support to the development and implementation of the AFTA 1 program in Cote d'Ivoire. In particular, the Agricultural Economist will : * Contribute to policy dialogue on agricultural and rural issues and interactions with the client and partners, and alert management (both country and sector) to issues requiring attention ; * Lead/initiate/participate in analytical and strategic work pertaining to agricultural growth and productivity, including work managed by AFTA1 and that managed by other units, but requiring input from agricultural staff, such as public expenditure analysis ; * Assume an active role in the Cote d'Ivoire country team with the aim to ensure adequate and appropriate integration of relevant aspects of the agriculture and rural development agenda in core Bank products, including country assistance strategy, country economic memorandum and the like"

"Project description Expertise France is preparing a bid for a project funded by the World bank which aims to provide technical assistance to the Government of Macedonia and the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES) to reform the 4 year Secondary Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system and incorporate mechanisms for a quick response to the labour market demands adapting to changes in the market and in the demographic situation. More info online: http://mon.gov.mk/images/documents/SDIS_project/TOR_VET_reform_NOL.15.pdf"

The next Brussels Development Briefing on "Global food systems, local impact: the role of agribusiness and development partnerships in advancing African agriculture" will take place Tuesday 25th November 2014 (9h-13h) at the ACP Secretariat (451 Avenue Georges Henri, 1200 Brussels, room C). The transformation of the African agri-business sector is a key challenge to achieve food security and economic development. A differentiated approach to partnerships, based on the development of competitive local private sectors, is essential to boosting agricultural development in Africa. In this context, the objective of this Brussels Briefing is to discuss strategies and approaches for harnessing the potential of development partnerships with the private sector to catalyse market development and productivity in African countries. The outcome of this meeting should be a better understanding of the needs and constraints of the local agricultural sector and strengthen linkages between private sector and development cooperation. At the European level, the meeting would contribute to the development of a framework for dialogue and effective joint action with the private sector. Speakers will include the European Commisison (DG Agri and DG Devco), Yara, the Farmers organizations (SACAU, EAFF), some EU agribusiness groups operating in Africa, European Investment Bank, BMZ, AUC

Brief description of the Assignment: The objective of this assignment is to support the operationalization of the Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy, elaborated as a response to Africa's youth unemployment and underemployment crisis. Specific objectives include the development of a strong pipeline of projects under the umbrella of the Bank's Job creation initiative for at least 15 Bank's Regional Member Countries. The scoping exercises aims to learn lessons on best and scalable practices at country level. The junior consultant will also support other activities which has a focus on job creation. The junior consultant will work closely with the Department for Human and Social Development and will further help coordinate at Bank wide level and across the Bank's task force on 'Jobs for Youth'

"On April 25-26, the AYA Forum is being organised by the African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with Partners in GFAR: CTA, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN). About 250 young agripreneurs from across Africa, as well as institutional and business partners, are expected to attend. As a pre-event to the AYA Forum, CTA will run, on, a workshop entitled Accelerating Youth Agriculture Entrepreneurship Using ICTs. This workshop is designed for partners including development organisations, venture capitalists, young start-up companies, farmer organisations and representatives of national entrepreneurship programmes."

"Accroître les revenus des jeunes en Afrique subsaharienne, segment de la population en pleine croissance, devrait être l'une des grandes priorités de la région, selon un nouveau rapport de la Banque mondiale intitulé « L'emploi des jeunes en Afrique subsaharienne ». Une priorité qui nécessitera un plan d'action sur plusieurs fronts. "

"After the tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, the recovery of fishing was limited while non-fishing sectors temporarily expanded. This paper shows that fishermen's ex-post labor supply responses continued to be constrained by the provision of low quality production assets. The average fishing productivity also declined for the negative selection in response to the aggregate shock. In a natural experiment set-up, it shows widening income inequality after the tsunami for income losses to the recipients of poor quality aid. It suggests the importance of quality monitoring and private market access to sustainably promote rural development after the tsunami."

"Morocco has a population of about thirty million inhabitants, 45 percentage of who live in rural areas. This rate has been declining steadily for the past fifty years, though the rural exodus rate seems to have slowed down over the past decade. With a population growth rate that has also slowed down (1.4 percentage per year), the country is going through a demographic transition, or 'demographic windfall', with a significant increase in the working population estimated at 11.2 million people in 2005. On the whole, agriculture employs 43 percentage of the economically active population, but this rate goes up to 80 percentages in rural areas. Keeping in mind the 'entries' and 'exits' from the work force, the additional number of the individuals able to work was estimated in 2005 at 460,000 people, and the additional number of jobseekers is estimated at 380,000 per year for the next ten years. "