"Ten years later, just eight countries - Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Niger and Senegal - have reached or exceeded the 10%
spending target, and nine - Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso,
Congo-Brazzaville, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania -
have achieved agricultural growth of more than 6% per annum"
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/feb/14/africa-farming-caadp-agriculture
Has Africa's focus on farming borne fruit?
A decade of Caadp has brought progress across the continent but too few
returns on agriculture spend in most countries
A farmer works in her potato field in Masiaka, Sierra Leone. Women
smallholders have not seen many benefits of Caadp. Photograph: Jake
Lyell/Alamy
In July 2003, African leaders meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, committed to
allocating 10% of their national budgets to agriculture by 2008, and to
increasing annual agricultural growth to 6% of GDP. Their aim: to eliminate
hunger, and reduce poverty and food insecurity. Their instrument of choice:
the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (Caadp), a
platform that brings together key players - including the government, the
private sector and civil society - at national, regional and international
levels to improve co-ordination and share knowledge.
Ten years later, just eight countries - Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Niger and Senegal - have reached or exceeded the 10%
spending target, and nine - Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso,
Congo-Brazzaville, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania -
have achieved agricultural growth of more than 6% per annum.
By any standards, Caadp should be considered a failure. But speak to almost
anyone involved in agriculture in Africa - NGOs, farmers, donors and the UN
- and they will tell you it has been successful.
"Look at any other sector in Africa and look at what Caadp has been able to
do for the past 10 years ... I think that Caadp has been a key driver when it
comes to refocusing on a priority sector for Africa," says Mouhamed Lamine
Ndiaye, pan-African head of economic justice at Oxfam.
"We have here a forum for political dialogue whereby the African
constituents bring the African perspective on agricultural issues," says
Bernard Rey, deputy head of the EU's rural development, food security and
nutrition unit. "As a development process, the [European] commission
believes it is exemplary. It has its difficulties but it's interesting."
While meaningful dialogue between the government and farmers has not been
possible in many countries, where it has taken place, for example in Kenya,
results have been impressive. "Caadp has really contributed quite
significantly to bring the public and private sector to sit around the same
round table - it has brought that paradigm shift within our operations,"
explains Peter Mwangi Gitika, general manager in charge of programmes,
projects and resource mobilisation for the Kenyan National Farmers
Federation. "Farmers are able to talk, and they are listened to."
When the programme was established, spending on agriculture in Africa -
both in the public sector and development aid - was declining, says Martin
Bwalya, head of Caadp. Spending and growth were stagnant and some countries
were regressing. "[Agriculture] needed massive reform. It was not just an
issue that you pour money on - that's what we did in the four or five
decades before Caadp. So Caadp was also saying, what more do we need to do?
It was pointing to very systemic reforms," he adds.
According to Bwalya, over the past 10 years, the continent has begun to
tackle some fundamental issues. Ethiopia, he says, has demonstrated clearly
the importance of institutional reform in supporting sustained agricultural
growth. In Rwanda, quality investments, better planning, accountable
systems and the use of ICT have made a real impact.
One criticism levelled against Caadp is that it has done little to help the
most marginalised farmers - women smallholders, who on average account for
about 55% of the labour force and carry out about 70% of farm work, but
represent just 8% of land ownership.
"We realised that, after analysing [agricultural] investment plans, we
could not find any specific budget that goes to women," says Fatou Mbaye,
Livelihoods Thematic Manager with Acord, whose research has shown that when
women have equal access to land and resources they can increase crop yields
by 25%-30% and reduce the level of hunger by 12%-17%.
"We need to invest in women farmers in order to increase production, but
also to reduce hunger and malnutrition," she says. "We definitely need, at
national level, some really strong frameworks that support women farmers -
especially in terms of land reform."
Land rights remain one of the most contentious issues facing Africa. "We
will not be able to do anything on agriculture if we don't resolve the
issue of land," Ndiaye says.
The declaration by the African Union that 2014 will be the year of
agriculture and food security has prompted calls for a reassessment of
Caadp. It follows the AU's pledge in July to eradicate hunger on the
continent by 2025, although no concrete plans on how this would be achieved
were forthcoming. Debates about the future of agriculture are expected over
the coming months.
What next for the programme?
Adama Coulibaly, head of the UN economic commission for Africa's
agricultural production systems sector, believes the quality of investments
needs to be improved. "We need to rethink the way that public spending in
agriculture is made ... If we are putting in just $1, we have to ensure that
this generates more than $1," he says.
For some countries - for example, Ethiopia, Ghana and Mauritius - the
return on spending on agriculture has exceeded expectations. But for the
majority of African countries, the transformative impact of each dollar
spent has not produced the right results.
"We need to shoot for overall growth in the range of two digits but to do
that agriculture cannot be the only driver. We need to make sure that we
have agricultural growth with something else - services and industry,"
insists Coulibaly. This is why the UN economic commission for Africa has
been pushing for commodity-based industrialisation, he says. "That is where
most of the value addition and wealth can be created."
Received on Mon Mar 31 2014 - 09:15:43 EDT