Communication and Advocacy for the Second African Transformation Report: Agriculture: Powering Africa’s Economic Transformation

ACET committed to organize a series of global, regional and national launch and advocacy events and several of these events were successfully organized to promote ACET’s work and give visibility to the report. As mentioned above and in further details, we organized the following events: • A stakeholder consultation was held in March 2017 in Kenya to solicit feedback on the ATR2 from a number of technical partners including the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grow Africa and the University of Nairobi. • In August 2017, the report was previewed at the African Caucus Meeting of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Gaborone, Botswana where Finance Ministers of African countries were represented. The report provided an analytical basis for the discussion on “financial deepening and Inclusion to support Agricultural Development in Africa”. ACET’s President Dr. K.Y. Amoako previewed the report to this high-level group while then ACET Chief Economist, Dr. Yaw Ansu, presented the report as part of a high-level panel on agricultural transformation.Two months later, the report was formally launched in Washington DC on the sidelines of the World Bank/IMF Annual meetings in October. • In November 2017, the findings of the African Transformation Report were again shared at the African Development Bank’s Leadership for Agriculture Forum (L4Ag) in Cote d’Ivoire. The Forum explored how agriculture and agribusiness can be the engine of economic transformation in Africa. The report, together with the World Bank’s “Improving the Business Climate in Agriculture 2017” report were the key resources for closed sessions on agribusiness and public-private sector consultations and also underscored discussions at the forum as a whole. (see http://acetforafrica.org/highlights/10728/). • In May 2018, an additional important event took place on the side-lines of the influential Council of Ministers meeting convened by the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa in May. ATR2 was presented at a well-attended side event co-chaired by ECA Executive Secretary, Dr. Vera Songwe, and ACET President, Dr. K.Y. Amoako (see http://acetforafrica.org/media/at-com-2018-ministers-to-discuss-agricultures-potential-to-power-africas-economic-growth-2/). • Shortly after this, the report was the focus of a Ghana Agricultural Transformation Forum, organised at the University of Ghana by ACET in partnership with AGRA (see https://africanbusinessmagazine.com/latest/remodelling-africas-agric-sector-a-must-for-transformation-says-a-new-report/). The two organizations agreed four focus areas and five target countries for collaborative work. • Finally, ATR2 was again presented at two events during ACET’s recent African Transformation Forum, co-hosted by the Government of Ghana in Accra on 20-21 June. The first event was a one-day incipient meeting of the Agriculture Chapter of the Pan-African Coalition for Transformation (PACT), which took place on day one of the Forum (see http://acetforafrica.org/highlights/agriculture-powering-african-transformation/). The second was a plenary presentation and panel discussion of ATR2 (see http://acetforafrica.org/media/atf2018-in-review-african-policy-makers-business-leaders-and-heads-of-state-hold-a-dialogue-for-action/).