AUC, RECs, civil society and development partners for more country-level implementation of CAADP

 

 

ABUJA, Nigeria, November 10, 2009/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The African Union Commission (AUC), in collaboration with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS), kicked off the 5th Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme Partnership Platform (CAADP-PP) meeting today, 09 November 2009, at the Transcorp Nicon (Hilton) Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria.

 

The CAADP PP engagements have grown over the years to become a key forum for collective multi-partner peer review and support of the CAADP implementation process.

 

The AUC was represented by H.E Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, AUC Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture. Mr. Salifou Ousseini, Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources, represented the ECOWAS Commission whilst Prof. Richard Mkandawire of the NEPAD Agriculture Unit who stood in for the NEPAD CEO Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki represented the NEPAD Secretariat.

 

During the opening ceremony, Commissioner Tumusiime, stated that the efforts of the AU-NEPAD had made promising developments in articulating broader mechanisms for ensuring effective support to accelerate the CAADP country round table processes.

 

She also highlighted the significant progress made by the AU-NEPAD in engaging the international community towards the Global Food Security concern as well as supporting Africa’s Agriculture through CAADP.

 

“We are working faster to address the issue of how to manage the post compact activities as you will listen from the elements of the roadmap to include a much clearer post-compact CAADP process implementation…” Mrs. Tumusiime added. (the complete speech of Commissioner Tumusiime is available on www.Africa-union.org ).

 

Speaking on behalf of Dr. Mayaki, Prof. Richard Mkandawire of NEPAD revealed that it is the mutual interest and engagement on issues of African agriculture that had brought all the various entities – development partners, RECs, national focal points and civil society together as partners is support of African agriculture.

 

However, we are aware that the issues we discuss and are concerned about are just more than just being about ‘agriculture’, he added.

 

“Africa faces critical challenges many of which continue to trap the continent and its people in the poverty spiral”.

 

He then went on to note that the rising interest of the global community towards African Agriculture and the prioritization of agriculture by the African leadership through the Maputo declaration had paved the way for success in the African story on food security.

 

In his remarks to the participants Mr. Gregoire Akofodji, Minister of Agriculture from Benin, said that political leadership is a key instrument for the implementation of the CAADP programme.

 

Speaking on behalf of the development partners Mr. Jeff Hill, the Director for Agriculture at the USAID Bureau for Africa revealed that the United States was working to develop a strategy and related legislation to address and sustain support for global hunger and food security, built on the L’Aquila principles.

 

“Through these efforts we will continue our support for CAADP”, he added.  

 

The 5th CAADP PP meeting is anticipated to discuss and take important decisions on various components of CAADP implementation including, amongst others: CAADP Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) Governance arrangement; CAADP Monitoring and Evaluation Framework; Roadmap for the follow-up and implementation of the July 2009 Heads of State and Government Summit decisions; Framework for Regional CAADP implementation and regional compacts, as well as the issue of food security and climate change, which are affecting agricultural performance.

 

CAADP is a shared framework for the development of the agriculture sector in Africa. Its main objective is to help African countries achieve higher economic growth through agriculture-led development, thereby eliminating hunger, reducing poverty and food insecurity, enabling the expansion of exports, and supporting environmental resilience.

 

SOURCE 

African Union Commission (AUC)