CAADP in practice: Highlighting the successes.

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is, in many ways, unique in Africa. Never have development strategies been so transformed and so focused as they have become in the eight years of CAADP's existence.

In establishing CAADP, NEPAD set it a bold goal: to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agriculture. To achieve this goal, CAADP addresses policy and capacity issues across the entire agricultural sector and the African continent.

CAADP is entirely African-led and African-owned and represents African leaders' collective vision for agriculture in Africa. To realise their vision, the leaders agreed to increase public investment in agriculture by a minimum of 10% of their national budgets and to
raise agricultural productivity by at least 6%.

Improving the efficiency and output of agriculture is a long-term project that requires not only major improvements in seeds and livestock and the way land is managed, but also reform of attitudes, institutions and policy-making.

So far, eight African countries have exceeded the 10% target and most have made significant progress towards it. Ten countries have met the 6% target and another 19 have achieved productivity growth of between 3% and 6%.

To date, 25 countries have signed CAADP Compacts and incorporated them into their agricultural agenda.

This is a major achievement, and so the time seems right in 2010 for the NEPAD Agency, jointly with the GIZ – the German Agency for International Cooperation (formerly the German Agency for Technical Cooperation) – to document the emerging successes in implementing CAADP at different levels and with different players and stakeholders.

In this study, carried out by an independent think tank, the UK's Overseas Development Institute (ODI), policymakers, development partners, civil society, farmers, academics, the media and African leaders were invited to share their experiences, perceptions
and interpretations of the success of CAADP in terms of "the-way-we-do-business" in agriculture.

The study aimed to bring out the evidence of success in various impact areas. The intention is that documenting and sharing the CAADP story will not only help intensify the transformation now underway, but will also promote active participation by citizens
throughout Africa, enhance mutual accountability and ensure that future initiatives build on today's successes.