Tackling rural poverty, together

Strengthening coordinated donor support for CAADP

We and our members see agriculture as a vital component of sustainable economic growth in African countries. We therefore take seriously the “wake-up call” issued by the Progress Report on Agriculture at the 7th Africa Partnership Forum (APF) Meeting, October 26 – 27, 2006, in Moscow (see box at right) and wish to help improve the scorecard for agriculture.

Answering to the wake-up call issued by the APF, we together with USAID convened the first Donor Consultation Workshop on CAADP on November 15 and 16, 2006, devising ways to strengthen coordinated donor support for CAADP.

Participants at work

The objectives of the meeting were to:

• familiarise with the status of CAADP implementation, indicating roles and responsibilities of leading African organisations at different levels;
• identify critical issues inhibiting a fast operationalisation of CAADP (from donor and African side) and develop strategies / actions to overcome these “blockages”;
• agree on actions for donor coordination, indicating e. g. lead donors for countries where CAADP country processes are being implemented;
• obtain clarity on the role of the Donor Platform in alignment and harmonisation of CAADP implementation.

Major outcomes and findings of the meeting

Status of CAADP implementation

Dr. Ousmane Badiane (IFPRI) outlined how the CAADP process is embedded in the NEPAD initiative and the African Union and which measures have been taken recently to accelerate the implementation of the CAADP agenda. CAADP is a program, whose objectives and targets were set up by the Heads of the States of the African Union (AU). The objectives focus on agriculture-led growth to reach MDG 1, on an annual growth rate of 6 % of the agricultural sector and on increasing public investment of African governments up to a 10 % budget share. Four pillars guide the CAADP program towards reaching Africa’s goals of the agricultural agenda:

1. Extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems
2. Improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for market access
3. Increasing food supply and reducing hunger
4. Agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption

CAADP has been slow in operationalisation, until the process started to focus at country level. The country level process is a two-part process.

• One part of the process is about taking stock and planning at country level through the creation of Country CAADP Round Tables or ‘Implementation Platforms’
• The other part concentrates on building partnerships and alliances between key actors under the leadership of national governments.

The final outcomes of the round tables are the so-called CAADP Compacts. The CAADP Compacts guide the implementation of CAADP in the long term. The CAADP round table process has been supported since its creating through a donor consortium via Regional Economic Communities (RECs) for designing regional program frameworks, supporting the national round table processes in 20 countries by July 2007 and in order to support a knowledge system to support peer review and learning.

There is significant progress in two of the RECs: COMESA and ECOWAS. In the COMESA region processes have been initiated in Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya and Ethiopia. In the ECOWAS region Niger, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Nigeria, Ghana and Togo are the first phase countries where CAADP round tables and compacts are being implemented.

Blockages inhibiting the progress of CAADP

CAADP’s relatively modest progress partly is due to a series of critical issues which have not been addressed so far. In a first analytical step, these critical issues and challenges slowing down the CAADP process were identified from the donor-side as well as from the African side:

Proposed actions to remove blockages inhibiting progress of CAADP

On the basis of having identified critical issues inhibiting progress of the CAADP process, the next analytical step focused on the proposition of key challenges and actions for the donor-side as well as for the African side:

Addressing information and co-ordination failures of CAADP

The CAADP process faces information gaps as well as insufficient co-ordination at the different levels, i.e. continental, regional and national level. Major information and co-ordination failures were identified as well as options on what donors could do to foster alignment and harmonisation.

Key messages of donors towards the CAADP process

NEPAD and the CAADP process desired clear signals from donors in the context of the Donor Platform meeting in Geneva. These signals were expected to focus on donors’ view of the CAADP process and on possible measures to being undertaken in the near future.

The representatives of donor organisations present at the Geneva meeting developed a set of key messages to be addressed to African leaders and development partners involved in the NEPAD-CAADP process:

1. CAADP is an African Vision, not donor-driven
2. There is an urgent need for credible engagement of private sector, civil society, foundations and donors (including China and India)
3. Donors welcome the AU-NEPAD meeting on CAADP and look forward on the resolutions
4. Donors must take the APF wake-up call serious and be ready to respond
5. Donors acknowledges CAADP implementation platforms at country level
6. The Donor Platform is committed to streamline communication between and among donors and calls for support for African institutions at country level
7. Donors want to be credible partners in the CAADP-PP and want to make it vibrant and dynamic to help and accelerate the implementation of CAADP
8. Donors acknowledge the acceptance of CAADP as a framework for growth and poverty reduction, trade improvement and other core issues related to agricultural development of the African continent
9. Donors see CAADP as a framework for alignment
10. Donors recognise that there is a significant discrepancy between expectations towards CAADP and current implementation practice (see recent APF report)
11. Donors encourage work on CAADP pillars and country-level processes where primary of implementation takes place
12. There is a need for improved incentives for the agricultural sector to grow
13. Donors see the importance of relevant progress indicators for CAADP

Concrete actions and next steps

The critical analysis of the CAADP process concluded by yielding concrete actions and next steps to be taken to take the process forward. These actions and steps refer to individual donors as well as to the Donor Platform Secretariat.

1. Assessment of institutional capacity of CAADP-related institutions
• Terms of Reference and carry out the assessment
• Compile recent assessments
2. Reaffirm willingness to support NEPAD Secretariat and AU Commission
3. Develop a donor ‘guide’ to participation in CAADP (see above)
4. Develop a website for information sharing in partnership with the Secretariat
5. Negotiate a coherent reporting system with APF Secretariat based on common milestones / indicators and jointly produce reports
6. Initiative to harmonise the approaches to CAADP by international organisations
7. Preparation of next CAADP-PP meeting
8. Support REC and country platforms
9. Establish donor groups at REC level