Implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has over the last decade enabled countries to gain valuable insights and experiences, and in turn generated useful data and information on key transformational issues in agricultural development. These spun the entire breadth of development initiatives, including: planning of the sector – highlighting the multi-sectoral value and the need for evidence-based decision making; considerations in implementation of initiatives – such as the call for systemic capacities and the holistic and integrated nature of development initiatives; and reporting and accountability mechanisms – underpinned by reflection and learning. 

The Twenty-Third ordinary session of the AU Assembly held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in 2014 recommitted to the CAADP principles and goals and defined a set of targets and goals – referred to as the Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation Goals. The Declaration purposes, in part, to promote shared prosperity and improved livelihoods, including halving poverty by 2025. Accordingly, the African leaders committed to create job opportunities for at least 30% of the youth in agricultural value chains, and to support and facilitate preferential entry and participation for women and youth in gainful and attractive agri-business opportunities, amongst others. In their Declaration in Malabo, the Heads of State recalled the progress made and noted the need for translating Africa’s agricultural development goals into tangible results.

In order to build on the achieved results and at the same time create a more conducive environment for the ambitious agenda set in Malabo, there was a need to adopt an action research attitude of reflecting in a systematic approach before acting. Inextricably, the role and value of harnessing, (re)-packaging and sharing knowledge from the data and information generated over the last decade of CAADP’s implementation and from new knowledge holds a central position in the new era of Africa’s agriculture and food & nutrition security development.

Furthermore the achievement of the transformational development goals aimed for by the African Union in its agenda 2063 vision and the subsequent planning tools and instruments, lies heavily on Africa’s intellectual and knowledge capital.

It is against this background that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and NEPAD Agency jointly organised a workshop on CAADP Knowledge Management in Dakar – Senegal.