Luanda — The low performance in eradicating poverty and fighting hunger on the African continent is a result of poor financing of investments in agriculture in the countries, the third Biennial Report of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) states.
In light of this finding, the third review report recommended the African Union (AU) member states to increase public spending on agriculture and farmers' access to agricultural inputs and technologies.
According to a press release accessed by ANGOP, the results of the third review report indicated that the continent is not on track to achieve and meet the goals set until 2025, however, it stresses that some positive progress is being made.
Of the 51Member States that reported progress regarding the programme implementation during the 2021 biennial review cycle, the document singled out Rwanda as the only country on track to meet the commitments of the detailed CAADP, as a result of the investment it has made in this sector.
On the other hand, it stresses that the implementation process of the comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme should contain common arguments to put forward the implementation and acceleration of growth and transformation of the Malabo Declaration.
The report further states that during the period under review of the agricultural sector in Africa, it was pointed out the need to develop and implement a plan to support member states in the preparation and wide dissemination of policies and technical notes to support decision making.
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Conclusions and Key Highlights
The Malabo declaration - an instrument that was adopted in 2014, by AU member states, recommended that National Agricultural Investment Plans (NAIPs) should have been developed by 2018, as key tools to implement programmes that meet the seven commitments of this programme.
Unfortunately, reads the report, so far not all Member States have fully and consistently adopted this process, so this has significantly contributed to the continent not being on track to meet its targets.
It also included recommendations to invest in building resilience, post-harvest storage technology to limit losses, strengthening of agricultural data collection and management systems to ensure that all goals and targets are met.
It also reinforced the "re-commitment" to the principles and values of the CAADP process, increased investment financing for agriculture, halving poverty by 2025, boosting intra-African trade in agricultural products and services, and increasing the resilience of livelihoods and production systems to climate variability and other related risks.
In addition, it is again emphasized that AU member states work collaboratively with all stakeholders, and should ensure that national dialogue processes are convened to reflect on and discuss outcomes to accelerate the fulfilment of the Malabo Declaration.
The note adds that it continues to inspire broad interest and dialogue on agricultural transformation in Africa, as desired by the Malabo declaration, both the results framework process as well as the key instrument panel to facilitate the peer review mechanism enshrined in the AU principles and the original agenda of the New Partnership for Africa's Development .
