The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina has urged Burkina Faso to aggregate the financial potential of agriculture to boost its economy.
AfDB plans to support Burkina Faso’s National Development Plan for Economic and Social Development (PNDES) for the period 2016 to 2020.
“Burkina Faso has immense potential in agriculture. We have to focus on agriculture as a business. It is at the heart macro-economic stability,” said Adesina.
He advised on the need to focus on agriculture, energy and road corridors to open up the land-locked country and attract the private sector to develop agro-poles and agricultural value chains to enable the transformation of livestock products such as milk and butter and cotton to textile.
PNDES aims to provide guidance for the economic and social development of Burkina Faso based on the Presidential programme, the 2025 vision for the country and a global plan for sustainable development.
It focuses on political and economic governance aimed at reforming and modernizing public administration and institution, human capital development, boosting viable economic sectors, such as agriculture and livestock farming through the development of value chains for the creation of 50,000 productive jobs annually.
Adesina urged the setting up of an agri-business bank rather than an agricultural bank to leverage the country’s huge potential in the sector to finance value chain development and scale up production of agro-industrial goods.
He also mulled the possibility of seeking support from partners to finance a robust programme for Sahelian countries plagued by a wide range of problems related to security, unemployment and environmental degradation.
Adesina was speaking during a meeting with Burkina Faso’s Prime Minister Paul Kaba Thieba, his delegation and AfDB officials.
The AfDB has been operating in Burkina Faso since 1972. Its current portfolio in the country comprises 15 projects and programmes worth $468.21 million.
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