“Agricultural led development needs to be sustained. We must commit to adequate investments if we are to meet the challenges of hunger & food insecurity,” Hon. Angela Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development in South Africa, made the statement at the official opening of the 16th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Partnership Platform (CAADP PP) on 24 November.

The platform was convened under the theme “Malabo Commitments Five Years on: Translating Lessons Learnt into Accelerated Action towards 2025,” setting in motion the need to respond to the challenge that Africa cannot afford to stagnation of progress in agriculture.

“Resilience is being given a new definition as COVID-19 gives it magnification. The importance of feeding populations therefore becomes paramount,” Mr Holger Kray-Chair, CAADP Development Partner Group & Practice Manager, Agriculture & Food Security, from the World Bank, remarked.

Emphasising the need for action towards sustained progress in Africa’s agriculture and food security, Dr Ibrahim Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer of the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD, gave the following message:

• Political determination in transforming agriculture needs to be at the highest level.
• All stakeholders and development partners need to stick to the Malabo Declaration, and there should not be the implementation of various policies and tools that are often in conflict with one another.
• Our work in agricultural led development needs to be through ‘intelligent and aligned’ partnerships.
• The CAADP strategy needs a more direct positioning of the food system as the anchor for inclusive growth and transformation.
• Data availability and use for planning and implementation is still a weak area.
• CAADP projects and programmes are a sound basis for building data gathering and utilisation capabilities, linking these with national processes of handling planning and development data.

This message is in the context of the fact that, as reported by Amb. Josefa Sacko, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission, “Out of 49 countries that reported progress in implementing Malabo Declaration, 36 made positive progress between in 2017 and 2019. However, only Rwanda, Morocco, Mali, and Ghana attained or surpassed the minimum score to be on-track.”

Mr Ousmane Badiane, former director for Africa at the International Food Policy Research Institute, also noted that “while investment in African agriculture is growing, it is not growing fast enough. Per capita income is stagnating, and the solid growth of the last two decades is not being sustained.”

Within the framework of the Malabo Declaration on “Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods” a resounding appeal to Governments of Member States to exert more efforts and support action in four broad thematic areas has been made. The actions are:

1. Strengthening Resilience: This can be done through a two-pronged approach involving: a) creation and support of mechanisms for linking development and humanitarian approaches in resilience building processes; and b) Empowering vulnerable groups through social protection interventions that link local production with local consumption, with the aim of improving food affordability, raising incomes and resilience to food insecurity shocks enhanced.

2. Promoting agribusiness to create opportunities for decent jobs for the youth and women as a mechanism to address the root causes of poverty and distress migration.

3. Promoting nutrition sensitive agriculture. This includes the production of a diversity of crops rich in micronutrients and improved consumption of nutritious food baskets.

4. Strengthening institutional capacities and partnerships for policy implementation and promoting transparency and mutual accountability. This includes review and evidence-based monitoring of progress in the implementation of National Agricultural Investment Plans and special programmes for ending hunger.

The CAADP Partnership Platform this year was held to inspire a renewed spirit in CAADP partners, stakeholders at the various levels to see light at the end of the tunnel and with renewed commitment and determination to play a part in supporting identified priorities of the National and Regional Agriculture Investment Plans.

About the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods:

At the African Union Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in June 2014, Heads of State and Government adopted a remarkable set of concrete agriculture goals to be attained by 2025. The Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods is a set of new goals showing a more targeted approach to achieve the agricultural vision for the continent which is shared prosperity and improved livelihoods. The Malabo Summit reconfirmed that agriculture should remain high on the development agenda of the continent and is a critical policy initiative for African economic growth and poverty reduction.