by Bayano Valy – SANF 05 no 16
Major international and regional development partners have signalled their will to support the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), if African countries allocate 10 percent of state budgets to agriculture as agreed by the African Union.
The statements were made in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, at the end of a regional meeting launching the implementation of CAADP. This is a New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative geared to promote interventions that best respond to the continent’s agricultural challenges.
CAADP’s approach is four-pronged: extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems; improving rural infrastructure and trade related capacities for improved market access; increasing food supply and reducing hunger; and agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption.
It also pays attention to disasters and emergencies that require agricultural responses or safety nets.
The Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrialist countries, said that it is looking into how to fund Africa’s agriculture because “we understand it’s important for the combat of hunger and poverty.”
The G-8 representative to the meeting, Tom Hobgood, said that owing to the clear objectives of CAADP, the group is seeking an adequate platform that will boost implementation of the initiative. It is necessary that African countries commit 10 percent of their budgets that heads of state pledged in 2003 to plough back into agriculture.
African agricultural experts welcomed the support of the G-8 saying that Africa would show its seriousness on agriculture if it met the 10 percent target.
Richard Mkandawire, NEPAD Secretariat Agriculture advisor, warned that southern Africa would not make progress if it failed to change its current stance to a more innovative one.
This was also the position taken earlier on at the opening ceremony by Mozambique’s agricultural minister, Tomás Mandlate, and SADC Executive Secretary, Prega Ramsamy.
Mandlate said that it was time for effective implementation rather than mere talk on NEPAD’s programmes.
“We can’t go on talking about initiatives and intentions. We must implement otherwise we won’t reach the Millennium Development Goals, and people will continue going hungry,” said Prega Ramsamy.
“We’ve done many studies. Now it’s time to work in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, because the problems have already been identified,” he said.
Ramsamy told participants that SADC is already making great strides towards better regional development, where agriculture is one of the components. “In the long term plan we created, we realised it was important talking about agriculture on which 80 percent of our population depends.”
Based on the programmes the region is undertaking, he said, that it has achieved a surplus of 1.2 million tonnes of grain.
NEPAD believes that support in the sector would see agricultural productivity register an annual growth rate of six percent by 2015, with farmers fully integrated into the market economy – this will be in line with the MDG of reducing hunger and poverty by 2015.
African leaders have acknowledged the need to overhaul the thinking in agriculture. In 2000, Africa received over 2.8 million tonnes of food aid, which is a quarter of the world total. Figures for 1997-99 show that some 200 million Africans (28 percent of the total population) were chronically hungry, compared to 173 million in 1990-92.
Africa needs to invest at least US$3 billion annually (proposed until 2015) to increase food supply and reduce hunger, and the figure simply balloons if other factors like safety nets are taken into account.
“The total outlay for the period 2002 and 2015 (including operations and maintenance) for the four pillars is some US$251 billion,” reads the CAADP document.
Extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems is supposed to cost US$68 billion, including operations and maintenance. The figure for improving rural infrastructure and trade related capacities for improved market access has been estimated at US$131 billion. Increasing food supply and reducing hunger has been budgeted at US$49.5 billion; and finally agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption requires US$4.6 billion.
Mkandawire said that the “challenge is now to marshal more international and African support for the programme.” (SARDC)
