NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Agribusiness investments one year into the pandemic: Where are we now?

Building on the success of CASA’s “Rethinking Agribusiness Investments Through the Pandemic” webinar series, which took place in April and May 2020, the programme is organising a webinar to discuss the reality on the ground after a year of COVID-19. The panel will draw on examples from Africa to unpack the impact of the pandemic on investment in and performance of agricultural value chains in Africa; and discuss the next challenges on the horizon.

The panel

Sami Khan, CDC Group Plc, will discuss how the pandemic has impacted on DFI investment and the performance of agricultural value chains in Africa. He will also explore the challenges on the horizon, and how investors could respond.

Philip Boahen, African Development Bank, will explore lesson on how the pandemic has impacted on agricultural value chains in Africa and the most appropriate responses investors can make.

Sheila K Mugyenzi, Uganda Investment Authority, will evaluate how the pandemic has impacted the performance of, and investment in, the agricultural sector in Uganda. She will suggest how investors could consider moving forward with their agricultural investments in Uganda.

After the presentations there will be around 20 minutes of questions and answers.

Who should attend?

Impact investors; development finance institutions; commercial lenders, donors and investment promotion agencies. It will also provide useful background information for agri-business companies and experts; NGOs and Think Tanks.

Wednesday 28 April at 12:00 (Noon) BST. On-line.

Login details will be emailed out to registered attendees a few hours before each webinar

The Details

This series of webinars features analysis of evidence by the CASA programme and partners, designed to support the commercialisation of agriculture in emerging markets across the developing world. The series will: showcase solutions to the most common challenges in agri-business for inclusive growth and support investment facilitation in agriculture in emerging markets.

Each webinar lasts 60 minutes and take place on the last Wednesday of the month. The webinar will typically feature a combination of researchers and agri-business experts. Crucially, discussion will focus on actionable take-aways (‘breakthroughs’).

After the event you will receive a one-page briefing note which summarises all of the key discussion points. Within a few days of each event a video will be available in the events section of the CASA programme website. Any documents referenced in the webinars will be found in the evidence section of the CASA website.