Three days ago, we all arrived in the beautiful city of Dakar and this wonderful Abdou Diouf International Conference Center. We have all enjoyed the fantastic architectural design, the art works in the building and the beautiful scenery around this building. We have been motivated, we have been refreshed, we have been inspired, to think outside of the box!

We are very grateful to President Macky Sall, the Government and people of Senegal for the very warm welcome and excellent hospitality demonstrated during the three days of our deliberations here. President Macky Sall has not only hosted us. He also participated actively in the deliberations - leading by example!

And so have all of you - Heads of Government, Ministers of Finance, Ministers of Agriculture, Central Bank Governors, the African Union, the Economic Commission for Africa, our co-conveners of the various sessions, farmers, leaders from the private sector, the academia, youths - and members of the press.

Your very high level of energy, commitment and contributions to the dialogues during all sessions of the conference have been very motivating. It is clear that there are many exciting initiatives being done by many institutions. We are not starting from scratch. This conference will go a long way to build the necessary synergies to help scale up together what is working. We will build from here an effective transformative partnership for agriculture in Africa towards our shared goal of Feeding Africa.

The Dakar Conference has been marked by bold decisions to inform our Action Plan for Agricultural Transformation in Africa...