AU Commission signs CAADP compact agreement with Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, August 31, 2009/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The African Union Commission (AUC) has signed a Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Program (CAADP) country compact agreement with the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The event took place on Friday, 28 August 2009, in Nazareth, in the presence of H.E Mrs. Rhoda Peace Tumusiime, AUC Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture; H.E Mr. Tefera Derebew, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ethiopia, H.E Mr. Stephan Karangzi, Assistant Secretary General of COMESA, as well as representatives of NEPAD, International Organizations and the private sector.
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The signing ceremony was preceded by a two day long round table discussion chaired by H.E Dr. Abera Deresa, State Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ethiopia.
In respect to the coalition and success of African and foreign countries towards the implementation of CAADP, Mrs. Tumusiime underlined that “The African Union welcomes recent pronouncements by development partners, specially at the G-8 as well as the recent statement by the United States Government, reaffirming commitments to boosting their support to African agriculture through the CAADP framework and processes”.
The Commissioner further explained that “the AUC-NEPAD and the African development financing institutions together with our development partners, shoulder a major responsibility to ensure that agriculture effectively plays its role in advancing economic growth and alleviating poverty on the continent”.
She also advised of the need of better strategies and concrete effort of translating the CAADP framework and the compacts into implementation so as to address the limited sectoral growth, food and nutrition insecurity, climate change, food crisis as well as global financial crisis affecting the continent. “The AUC, the NEPAD Secretariat, RECs and lead pillar institutions are right now consulting extensively to ensure robust support to Member States in this regard” she added. (The complete speech of Commissioner Tumusiime is available on the AU Website: www.africa-union.org ).
Addressing the participants Dr. Abera observed that as the result of the Government Agriculture and Rural Development policy and strategy, encouraging results have been shown in improving the livelihood of small holder farmers. He also underscored “the focus of the Ethiopian CAADP process is to reinforce these achievements through strengthening and adding value to rural economic development and food security under the ongoing plan for accelerated and sustained development to end poverty”.
On behalf of Mr. Sindiso Ngwenya, Secretary General of COMESA, Mr. Karangzi (the Assistant Secretary General) announced that Ethiopia has already exceeded the CAADP budgetary allocation target of 10% and agricultural growth target of 6%. “CAADP will focus very strongly on supporting the Government and people of Ethiopia to remain on course with their agricultural growth agenda and to reach even higher investment and growth level” he added.
Mr. Richard Mkandawire, Head of Agriculture at the NEPAD Secretariat on his part underscored that CAADP is a transformative and reformist agenda to articulate the change of agricultural development strategies.
Ethiopia is the fourth country to sign the CAADP compact country agreement after Rwanda, Togo and Burundi.
SOURCE
African Union Commission (AUC)
