Progress on the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizers for an African Green Revolution

In June 2006, the African Union Special Summit of the Heads of State and Government adopted the 12-Resolution “Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer for the African Green Revolution.” At the end of the Summit, the AU Member States resolved to increase fertilizer use from 8.0 kilograms to 50.0 kilograms of nutrients per hectare by 2015. (Resolution 1)

There are some positive upward trends in fertilizer use in SSA. Between 1990 and 2008, fertilizer consumption per hectare in Kenya increased from 21 to 33 kg/ha; Angola increased consumption from 3.3 to 8.3 kg/ha; Cameroon increased consumption from 3.7 to 8.6 kg/ha; Tanzania increased consumption from 3 to 5.9 kg/ha; and Zambia increased consumption from 11 to 50 kg/ha. Similarly, in terms of total fertilizer use, between 1998/99 and 2007/08, total fertilizer consumption in Malawi increased from 50,200 to 125,153 tons of nutrients (NPK); Nigeria, 163,200 to 497,697 tons; Uganda from 3,535 to 18,976 tons; and Zambia from 36,700 to 117,978 tons.

Notwithstanding these commendable gains by some countries, fertilizer consumption levels, particularly for Sub-Saharan Africa, are still extremely low (Figure 1). Average fertilizer use per hectare in SSA has remained between 5 kg/ha and 10 kg/ha since 1990, which is less than 10 percent of the world average and far below the 50 kg/ha minimum target set by the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizer.

Nevertheless, there has been substantive improvement in the implementation of the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizers by the countries and (Regional Economic Communities (RECs) since June 2006.

The three RECs that submitted progress reports have well-structured, concrete programs in the pipeline/under implementation with a high potential of bringing about substantive changes on the ground in terms of policy and regulatory reforms, lower prices for fertilizers and ultimately, increased consumption of fertilizers.