CAADP

As mandated by the Organization of African Unity, the governments of Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa took the lead in initiating the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) – a strategic framework for pan – African socio-economic development.

NEPAD is a radically new intervention, made in Africa and spearheaded by African leaders, to address the main challenges facing the continent. These include escalating poverty, under-development, and the continent’s continued marginalization on the international scene. Because Africa is largely agrarian, CAADP is considered one of NEPAD’s most important sub-activities.

Through the CAADP, African governments are committed to raising agricultural productivity by at least 6% per year. This is the minimum required if Africa is to achieve agricultural-led socio-economic growth. To achieve this, these governments have agreed to increase public investment in agriculture by a minimum of 10% of their national budgets – substantially more than the 4% to 5% average they commit today.

Thus far only a few countries currently meet or surpass the 10% goal: Mali, Madagascar, Namibia, Niger, Chad and Ethiopia. However a number of governments, including Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Rwanda, have either already boosted their agricultural budgets significantly, or are going to do so soon.

Since the structural adjustments era of the 1980s and 1990s, development partners as well as governments have invested relatively little in agriculture. And, the OECD reports that the share of total overseas development assistance to African agriculture has declined from 26% in the late 1980s to under 5% in 2005. While development partners are also asked to increase investment in agriculture, equally important is aligning their investment choices with those enunciated by Africa’s governments through the CAADP process.

Africa’s agrarian economies have been on the upswing for the past decade, with gross domestic products growing 6% on average per year, and the agricultural sector by 4-5% each year. Similarly, the level of per capita food production in Africa has increased steadily.

Average poverty levels in Africa, which rose annually in the 1980s and 1990s, have actually dropped by about 6% points over the past decade. And, the share of undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa has declined from 36% in the mid-1990s to 32% more recently.
CAADP aims to exploit and expand upon recent growth to help more African countries to achieve, or at least draw nearer to, the MDGs through sustainable development and improved food security. All the good news about improvements in Africa’s economies and food production indicates that the changes required to significantly reduce poverty and eliminate malnutrition are actually within the reach of many African countries. NEPAD will therefore be encouraging continental wide, regional and national governments to undertake the policy and investment measures necessary to speed up and broaden the growth processes.

In 2003, under CAADP’s aegis, African governments, regional bodies, donors, agriculturists and other stakeholders established four continental – wide priorities for investment and action in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and livestock management:

Extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems – for example increasing access to irrigation;
Increasing market access through improved rural infrastructure and other trade-related interventions;
Increasing food supply and reducing hunger across the region by increasing smallholder productivity and improving responses to food emergencies;
Improving agricultural research and systems to disseminate appropriate new technologies, and increasing the support given to help farmers to adopt them.

With the four continent – wide pillars as its foundation, in 2004-05 CAADP began to focus its efforts at the level of Africa’s three regional economic communities (RECs), which have now come to ‘own’ CAADP. These are the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Each held regional workshops to establish their own priorities based on the continent – wide pillars.

From there, the CAADP efforts drill down to the level of national roundtable charged with the following:

Aligning state policies with regional priorities and the four pillars;
Exploiting synergies and discussing economic bottlenecks between neighbouring countries, and deciding appropriate action on those matters;
Identifying gaps in the donor funding needed to achieve agreed priorities;
Initiating work to monitor and evaluate CAADP’s progress at the national, regional and continental levels.

These national roundtables, which are still underway, will lead to national pacts between donors and individual governments that will help different countries to achieve the four pillars.