Tackling rural poverty, together

Extract

Progress Report on Agriculture for the 7th Meeting of the Africa Partnership Forum in Moscow, Russia on  October 26-27, 2006

This monitoring report takes the first 4 CAADP pillars as its organising framework, adding to these, 2 cross-cutting issues – national resources and capacity, and support from development partners. It finds a mixed picture which has been difficult to ‘score’, particularly in the absence in many areas of data and underpinning monitoring systems. It assesses that there has been some progress on CAADP pillar 4 (research and technology), and partial progress under CAADP pillar 1 (land and water management). It finds, on balance, little progress to date under the other CAADP pillars. It also finds no evidence of significant progress under the 2 cross-cutting issues above. It is important to recognise the importance of awareness and buy-in for CAADP, and that implementation will inevitably take time. Nonetheless, on the basis of the evidence to date, the report assesses the overall score as ‘red’. Although this issue is a very high priority for African leaders, and for the achievement of the MDGs, it has not yet benefited from the sustained efforts needed to generate significant progress. In this sense, this report constitutes a ‘wake-up call’.