Brussels Development Briefings

Speaking at the second Brussels Briefing on ‘Advancing African agriculture‘, Philipp Kiriro of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF) welcomed the ‘triple A’ initiative by the European Commission. However, he reminded the audience that farmers need to be at centre stage in the implementation; advancing African agriculture need to be based on real partnership among the different actors.

While African agriculture is mainly small scale, it remains theprimary activity of the largest parts of the population. It is crucial to make it work, as this will bring “growth, poverty reduction, and other benefits.” To make it work however, African agriculture needs to be transformed.

This transformation, he said, requires that domestic and regional markets are targetted, especially accelerating regional integration and creating regional custom unions. Safety and quality standards also need to be improved, “for all consumers, not only for exports to European markets.” Efficiency and competitiveness are also critical. He argued that there nees to be ‘fair competition’ – and that this calls for protection and investments that can allow African agriculture to develop and compete in different markets.

Focusing on the farmers, Mr. Kiriro called for better organization: So far “we had it all wrong” and it is not possible to improve African agriculture if farmers themselves are not working together, discussing, and networking at national and regional levels. In most countries, some structures already exists, but there is much to do to create professional farmer organizations that can meaningfully participate in the CAADP/AAA processes.

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Participants in the second Brussels Briefing on ‘Advancing African agriculture‘ were briefied by Angel Elias Daka of COMESA on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). He described its four pillars, its operations, and the current status of its activities.

In particular, the CAADP starts from a recognition that Africa has an enormous amount of land, most of which is being degraded and progressive abandoned. Food insecurity is a primary consequence of this situation. For this reason, the CAADP’s objective is to halve hunger by targeting an annual agricultural growth rate of 6% by 2015. This will be possible only if investment in agriculture will incease to around 10% of annual national budgets.

Its first pillar aims to extend the land area under sustainable land and water management; the second addresses infrastructure issues such as transport and irrigation; the third focuses on food supply and hunger reduction; and the fourth pillar seeks to improve agricultural production through technology adoption.

Operationally, the process begins with a focal point person in national ministries of agriculture. He or she forms a steering committee with representatives of all sectors and actors. This committee leads to a donor conference where options are elaborated and decided and a compact is signed.

The CAADP is operational in all COMESA states with Rwanda the first country to adopt the process. By 2008, all COMESA countries will endorse development programmes through CAADP processes.

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Summary of presentation (doc format)

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