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Re-Elected AfDB President To Be Sworn-In On Tuesday

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Joel Ajayi

The re-elected President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, will be sworn-in on Tuesday, September 1, for another five-year term.

The ceremony, according to the AfDB in a statement on Monday will be held virtually at 9am.

Dr Adesina, Nigeria’s former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, was re-elected last week after getting a hundred percent votes of all regional and non-regional members of the Bank.

The election took place on the final day of the 2020 Annual Meetings of the multilateral bank held virtually, and the Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Bank, Mrs. Niale Kaba, Minister of National Planning of Côte d’Ivoire announced his victory, making him the first Nigerian to be elected and re-elected to serve as the bank’s President.

Dr Adesina’s first term in office focused on new agenda for the Bank Group based on five development priorities known as the High 5s: Light up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialize Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa

During his initial 5-year term, the bank was able to impact the lives of 335 million Africans, including 18 million people with access to electricity; 141 million people benefiting from improved agricultural technologies for food security; 15 million people benefiting from access to finance from private investments; 101 million people provided with access to improved transport; and 60 million people gaining access to water and sanitation.

In his speech after the announcement, Dr Adesina said, “I am deeply grateful for the collective trust, strong confidence and support of our shareholders for electing me for a second term as President. It is yet another call for selfless service to Africa and the African Development Bank, to which I will passionately devote myself.”

Dr Adesina was able to weather the storm of favoritism, corruption, and other allegations after an independent Review Panel cleared him of any ethical wrongdoings.

The Panel, chaired by a former President of the Republic of Ireland, Mary Robinson, was set up by the Bureau of Governors of the Bank, following a complaint by the United States, to review the process by which two previous organs of the Bank – the Ethics Committee of the Board, and the Bureau of the Board of Governors – had previously exonerated Adesina.

In January this year, Dr Adesina was accused of ethical misconduct by a group of whistle-blowers on 16 allegations, which was reviewed by the Bank’s Ethics Committee of the Board of Directors in March and described the allegations as frivolous and without merit

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Agriculture

NASC trains officers on digital seed certification, onboard pilot license seed inspectors

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The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC)has improved the capacity of 25 newly engaged officers on digital seed certification using the National Seed tracker platform.
This is even as the Council has onboarded the licensed Seed Inspectors in some selected pilot states.


Giving his opening remarks at the two-day training workshop on digital seed certification, the Acting Director General, Dr. Ishiak Othman Khalid, said the council is committed to building the capacity of newly recruited certification and scientific office with deep interest in the digital seed certification appraisal system to ensure the system is at par with international best practices.


He said the Council is committed to ensuring that seed companies have the best-improved productivity, increased competitiveness for their seeds in the global seed space, and increased crop yield to compete in the international space.


“Our fundamental focus as a Council is on progressive strengthening and transforming of the practices of stakeholders in the seed value chain, such that the value creation at each level of the chain creates enough vested interest for all players to keep the system going.


“As part of our commitment to ensure national food security through agricultural sustainability and development of the seed industry in Nigeria, the Council has a world-class molecular diagnostic facility which can detect pathogens, variety identification using SSR markers, train purity testing, zygosity test, transgenic detection in GMOs among other tests using diagnostics tools.


The national Seeds tracker is an ICT solution to integrate supply chain functions and life seed systems to the Next Generation. Its vision is to organize seed production information, enable seed quality monitoring and certification, and empower every seed value chain actor to foster sustainable seed production for high productivity and profit.


Also, the Director, of Seed Certification and Quality Control, Ubandoma Mohammed, said the training aimed to enhance the capacity of the newly employed staff, so they would be able to fit effectively into the workings of the Council.


“WE are moving with time due to the technology of the time, we are training on digital seed certification using the national seed tracker. We have gone ICT and our report is partly being covered by our staff on the field using ICT. This training is not only for our staff, we are scaling it down to other stakeholders and the seed companies too.


“The training is very important because the President has declared a state of emergency on the food sector, therefore tasking the Ministry to ensure food availability. As we are speaking now the ministry has commenced distribution of inputs to farmers.

These inspectors are those that would go to the field to ensure that what is been planted are good and that they are seeds the farmers can use to get a good harvest.,” he said.

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