Strategy for agricultural transformation in africa

Gender will be a crosscutting issue across the Bank’s agricultural investments, 
and will direct dedicated funds to support programs and projects that assist women in 
agriculture, agribusiness, and natural resources management
. The Bank will also seek to 
improve cross-border trade, especially in agriculture, which will particularly benefit women, 
who form the majority of agricultural traders. As part of its contributions to TAAT and CSA-
financing, the Bank will also support initiatives to promote women’s access to new and labor-
saving agricultural technologies to boost production, including innovative technologies aimed 
at supporting ‘climate-smart’ agricultural approaches that build resilience to climatic and 
socioeconomic shocks. The Bank will also support measures to increase women’s access to 
local and regional markets, and to add value to farm produce through agro-processing and post-

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harvest management. The Bank will also support more effective and rigorous monitoring and 
evaluation of the gender-equality components of its interventions. 
3.7 
The Bank will also support RMCs in making agricultural production processes 
‘climate smart’ and assisting the transition to green pathways.
This will require attention 
in three main areas spanning a few of the strategy’s enabler’s: generation and access to 
appropriate technologies; establishment of the right institutional and policy environment at the 
local, national, and regional levels; and availability of appropriate financing mechanisms to 
promote uptake of improved technologies at all levels. In pursuing climate-smart agricultural 
production systems, the differing objectives and capacities of smallholder producers will be 
clearly distinguished from those of the large-scale producers. The Bank will promote projects 
for the enhancement of resilience of production bases and ecosystems. It will do this by 
supporting the restoration of degraded ecosystems and integrated management of natural 
resources. Integration of climate information into agriculture activities and natural resources 
management will be developed, to strengthen the resilience of agriculture (especially rain-fed 
agriculture) and vulnerable populations. The Bank will ensure that climate change is integrated 
in all its operations and will take a critical look at its impact on the prospects of success of its 
interventions. Additionally, the Bank will help RMCs in greening agriculture through practices 
such as agroforestry and organic farming.
3.8