Her Excellency Macenje Mazoka, Zambia High Commissioner to the UK, kindly hosted Phene Partner’s second Round Table discussion on the AfriGro Capital initiative, at Zambia House, London, on the 10th October 2024.
The event included delegations from five African High Commissions to the UK, as well as senior representatives from the UKFCDO, IFAD, AGRA, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and several significant agricultural and infrastructure companies that undertake business in Africa.
The discussions covered a range of topics in a free-flowing and collaborative exchange of views.
The first issue centred around the reduction of commercially focused agri-investments in a number of countries in Africa – why this is happening and what steps are needed to address this.
Key to progress is a well-articulated country leadership agenda to drive sustained agri-business growth. This needs to be backed up by the agri-infrastructure investment (irrigation, storage and processing) that farmers urgently need to both cope with radical climate change, and to maximise value addition and export opportunities.
Within this context, there is a real opportunity for governments to actively prioritise commercially viable longer-term anchor agri-investment opportunities.
A pro-active approach will help attract broader sustainable commercial investment, and this will need to be supported by investment de-risking mechanisms –considered critical to enable longer term commercial investments.
In addition, supporting the crowding in of smallholder and emerging farmers into emerging investment strategies was acknowledged by all to be not just essential, but also an excellent opportunity to ensure the benefits of activity are spread fairly across the spectrum.
In addition to Her Excellency Macenje Mazoka, we were privileged that His Excellency Dr Thomas John Bisika, the Malawi High Commissioner to the UK; senior representation from Tanzania, Namibia and Botswana High Commissions; Thule Lenniye Chief of Staff AGRA; Donal Brown, Associate Vice-President IFAD; Tim Genangel, Senior Investment Advisor, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change; Rod Bassett, Director of United Green; Jerome Hasler, Chief of Staff, UPL; Leonard Grote, Group COO, EDG, and farmer and private sector participants from Botswana who shared their expertise alongside other participants.