The Minister of Agriculture, Sovereignty Food and Livestock, Mabouba Diagne said at the launch of the AgriConnect pact by the State of Senegal, Tuesday in Dakar, that the country needs financing of the order of 1250 billion CFA francs to develop its agriculture, ensuring food security and creating jobs.

The AgriConnect Pact is an initiative led by the State of Senegal aiming to accelerate the transformation of systems the country's agri-food industry and to sustainably strengthen food security. This initiative is aligned with the guidelines of the National Agenda of transformation Senegal 2050 and on the National Strategy of food sovereignty 2024-2028. At the launch, the minister said that 2,500 billion CFA francs would be needed to reach food self-sufficiency, sustainably reduce poverty in rural areas and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. However, he proposed a gradual approach, calling on partners to mobilize half of this amount over a period of ten years.

The minister also emphasized the central role agriculture and livestock in the massive creation of jobs in Africa, stressing the importance of modernising the sector through the use of digital technologies and innovative agricultural tools. According to him, the young people and rural populations aspire above all to agriculture modernized and equipped with appropriate resources.

He believes that “African youth, The rural world requires one thing, it is to modernise agriculture and Give them the means.”

“The group of World Bank went committed to doubling its annual funding for agribusiness, to reach 9 billion dollars, and will mobilize an additional 5 billion dollars with the private sector and partners by 2030,” said the Vice President of group from the World Bank , Ousmane Diagana.