by Angel Navuri

African Union Development Agency-NEPAD and the African Union’s Commission for Department of Agriculture, Rural Economy and Blue Economy (ARBE) are organizing an expert consultative meeting to review the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

The meeting scheduled for 26-28 July 2022 in Dakar, Republic of Senegal will also shed insights in the National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) achievements and provide recommendations that will inform the next NAIPs cycle post-Malabo and the second Ten Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063.

According to the statement extended to The Guardian by the AUDA-NEPAD reads that,the meeting will specifically deliver on: an enriched articulation of uniquely African experiences, insights and lessons on what enhances (and hinders) implementation of the programme.

The challenges facing development of systemic/local implementation capabilities on agriculture and food systems programmes especially on policy and investment strategies.

Participants will also take time to go through an identified set of policy and investment choices which member states could be supported to operationalise in pursuit of locally adapted NAIPs as primary national (RAIPs at regional level) tools in organising and managing implementation.

“Participants will also bring to discussion a defined practical set of implementation and implementation support actions as basis to define locally adapted implementation modalities, focus intervention areas as well as resources,” reads the statement.

The AU statement points out that with the end of the second decade (MALABO Declaration) of the National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) and the Regional Agriculture Investment Plan (RAIP) nearing completion, it is critical to take stock on how far NAIPs and RAIPs were instrumental in driving the agriculture transformation processes and building resilient food systems.

The meeting will also focus on the current various continental and global trends such as Africa's youthful population, advent of digital tools and infrastructures, and the outcomes of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS).

In addition to that it will also focus on the various shocks and stresses that the agriculture sector has been exposed to recently (fall armyworm outbreaks, drought, flooding, locust infestation, COVID-19 impact, and the Ukraine-Russia crisis, etc.).

In 2003, the African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, adopted the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), as a policy framework to stimulate and guide attainment of food security and poverty reduction goals in Africa.

To underscore the commitment to agriculture development, the 2003 AU Summit further adopted a resolution to commit at least 10 percent of the annual public budget to agriculture and rural development and achieving agricultural GDP growth rates of at least 6 percent per annum A decade of CAADP implementation realised a number of transformational successes.

As at June 2015, 40 countries had engaged and launched the CAADP process and signed the CAADP Compacts whilst 32 countries had translated their compacts into National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans and were at different stages of implementation.

In marking the 10-year milestone of CAADP, the AUDA-NEPAD in liaison with the African Union Commission (AUC) and RECs led broad-based consultations and analytical work to review the gains and specially to embrace the lessons in determining drivers for CAADP over a second decade (Ref: Sustaining the CAADP Momentum).