Newsletter
Don't miss a thing!
We regularly provide you with the most important news, articles, topics, projects and ideas for One World – No Hunger.
Newsletter
Don't miss a thing!
We regularly provide you with the most important news, articles, topics, projects and ideas for One World – No Hunger.
Please also refer to our data protection declaration.
The GAAF on January 20th 2022 focused on business blueprints to advance climate resilience, food security and the fair participation of African countries in international trade.
Cooperation was the key term defining the 8th German African Agribusiness Forum (GAAF), which the German-African Business Association hosted virtually in collaboration with the German Agribusiness Alliance on January 20th 2022. High-ranking representatives of business and politics discussed how to contribute to the modernisation of African agriculture. Companies such as BASF, Hello Tractor and Symrise presented successful business models that have brought about improvements to living conditions in African countries.
There is no such thing as best practice. you need to deliver good practice and be determined to continuously improve.
Symrise’s Hamish Taylor commented. He presented the successful develoPPP partnership promoting sustainable vanilla cultivation in Madagascar in collaboration with Save the Children, Unilever and GIZ.
Many representatives of African agricultural ministries and the African Union Commission attended the conference, explaining the conditions in their countries and advocating higher investments from the German agri-food sector.
Professor Stefan Liebig, Chairman of the German-African Business Association, was pleased with the Federal Government’s presenting the strategic foundation of its Africa policy in the field of agriculture. Dr Ophelia Nick, the new Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft [Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture], emphasised that her department sought to promote a location-appropriate, climate-resilient approach to agriculture in its future collaboration with African nations. Its key objectives are the concrete implementation of the right to food for Africa’s people and the continent’s fair participation in international trade.
Jochen Flasbarth, State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), underscored the focus of the economic cooperation in his keynote speech. He pointed out that the global Sustainable Development Goals and the goal of lifting 500 million people out of hunger and malnutrition by 2030, which was formulated at the 2015 G7 Summit in Elmau, could only be achieved in collaboration with the private sector.
Africa and the rest of the world need your expertise, your innovative strength, your problem-solving skills and, potentially, your high leverage through economies of scale.
All these factors are needed to transform global agriculture and food systems towards becoming more climate-friendly, resource-efficient, socially just and economically stable and viable. Flasbarth further signalled that the BMZ intended to put the goal of a sustainable transformation of the global agriculture and food system on the agenda of this year’s German G7 presidency.
Many players exchanged their views about the collaboration and funding instruments used in German development cooperation with the private sector in the various forums, including the Agency for Business and Economic Development, develoPPP and the Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains.
Press release ‘8th GAAF – Paths to Successful Agriculture in Africa’ (in German).