The African Development Bank (AfDB) and Interpeace, an international organisation for peace building based in Switzerland have agreed to promote peace in Africa.

The organisations in a statement on AfDB’s website, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly promote economic investment and social development that positively impacts peace.

The signing took place during the Africa Resilience Forum which opened on Oct. 3, in the Ivorian commercial capital Abidjan.

Vice-President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery AfDB, Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade signed on behalf of her Bank, while Elhadj As Sy, a member of Interpeace’s governing board signed for her organisation.

According to the statement, the MoU is accompanied by a practical work plan with goals and outcome targets.

It said this underscored the innovative partnership between Africa’s premier development finance institution and the Finance for Peace Initiative by Interpeace.

The AfDB vice-president Akin-Olugbade highlighted the importance of pursuing innovative approaches to support peace and security on the continent.

According to her, AfDB is pioneering these efforts through the Security-Indexed Investment Bond (SIIB) Initiative, endorsed at the AU Heads of State Summit in February 2022.

She said the proposed bonds were aimed at raising additional financing at scale, including through capital markets to mitigate structural drivers of violence and conflict.

“The initiative also aims to offset the fiscal implications of elevated security sector spending.

“The Finance for Peace Initiative, implemented by Interpeace, and supported by Germany, complements the bank’s own efforts in this space.

“As it aims to develop protocols and pilots around peace finance, including for a peace bond asset class,” Akin-Olugbade said.

The representative of the Interpeace governing board, As Sy, expressed the organisation’s delight to formalise its partnership with AfDB through the MoU.

According to As Sy, this strong collaboration between AfDB and Interpeace affirms our joint commitment to catalyse private and public capital to work for a more inclusive, equitable and peaceful world.

“This partnership will demonstrate to the wider multilateral and international development financing system the need, benefits, potential and practicality of Peace Finance approaches on

the continent and beyond.

“It will grow Peace Finance as a thematic investing approach,by developing early and successful pipeline development of Peace Finance.

“And by fostering on-the-ground networks and capacities in Peace Finance in Africa,’’ he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the areas for collaboration outlined by the MoU include: Technical and capacity strengthening for embedding Peace Finance approaches.

This approach realise peace impact into AfDB’s sovereign and non-sovereign operations and policy dialogue.

“Advisory support and collaboration to develop a pipeline of Peace Finance structures that realise peace impacts.

“Multi-stakeholder engagement and field building for wider political and investor support for Peace Finance are also included.

As part of the partnership, a joint research project on peace-positive investment opportunities in Mozambique was inaugurated by the two organisations recently.

The African Development Bank (AfDB)is to train herdsmen and other Nigerians on livestock farming and ranching in the first phase of the initiative to create Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs).

Phenomenal in the initiative is a public-private partnerships aimed at developing priority value chains through developing infrastructure in rural areas and finishing and transforming raw materials and commodities.

AfDB said the bank and partner institutions plan to raise $520 million for the implementation of Phase 1 of the project.

Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, Special Adviser on Industrialisation to the President of the AfDB told NAN in an Interview on Thursday that livestock farming was one of the areas selected by the states.

The selected states include: Cross River State – cocoa, rice and cassava; FCT – beef and dairy livestock; Imo State – beef and dairy livestock; Kaduna State – tomato, maize and ginger; Kano State – rice, tomato, groundnuts and sesame oil; Kwara State – livestock; Ogun State – cassava, rice, poultry and fisheries and Oyo State – cassava, soybean, rice.

The AfDB representative added that the livestock farming and ranching will require training for beneficiaries,

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He said that the eight benefiting states were given option to identify their top three crops, saying that apart from livestock, some identified cassava, rice, cocoa among others.

He said that with the processing zones, it is hope that the era of people carrying cattle about would soon be over.

“So we are hoping that the processing zone will also create the special livestock zone, including ranching and whenever you see livestock at the heart of it, then you see people making feed stock, veterinary services.

“So each of them will create a significant value chains, solve this problem of insecurity, solve the problem of headers farmers clash, bring harmony to rural communities, raise income and then ensure security,

“So I think its a good thing that those particular states have identified livestock.

“In some places like Imo for example, they want to also do a lot of poultry, so its across as I said all the four aspect of agric business, crop, forestry, livestock, fishery.

“So, we are open to support on all forms, as you know Nigeria is a huge country, and there is no area of Nigeria where you don’t find this kind of resources that we are able to add value to,” he said.

He stressed that the target of the initiative are the poor and the small holder farmers, adding that there will be a great deal of advocacy to explain to people the rationale.

“Like I said it is not an optimum solution that people are running around, fighting and killing, so we hope our contribution will also help to solve this problem, so yes, so there will be training,” he said.

He added that the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) which is also a co-sponsor of the initiative, will also contribute to training based on their successes with small holder farmers.

He said that the AfDB will also be partnering other Agric-based institutions that have milestones in the requisite fields to contribute to making the project a huge success.

“So you will be seeing a lot of things simultaneously going on, capacity development, engaging with all kind of partners, small medium large, those things will be going on in the next couple of months,” he said.