A pan-African plan that breaks with the past
A focus on small farms and women
With CAADP, “the NEPAD programme has launched a continent-wide agricultural revolution” said NEPAD Steering Committee Chairman Wiseman Nkhulu of South Africa in 2004. “The call to the rest of the world is for complementary action to support the African people in implementing their own programme of self-reliance and development.”
In a recent issue of  id21, NEPAD’s Agricultural Advisor Richard Mkandawire of Malawi wrote: “The CAADP was conceived in Africa and is an African-owned vision that has the support of African leaders. No previous development efforts in sub-Saharan Africa have had this level of political endorsement and continent-wide focus. The CAADP does not tackle many new issues, but it does provide the first comprehensive effort to address them as an integrated process.”
CAADP’s core objective is to achieve a 6 percent annual growth rate in agriculture, sustained over time. The mood is upbeat, but the task is hugely daunting. According to the OECD, global financial assistance for African agriculture shrank from US$6.2 billion to US$2.3 billion a year between 1980 and 2002. The FAO predicts there will be 205 million undernourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 – up from 168 million in 1992. On present trends, MDG 1, the halving of hunger by 2015, will not be achieved in Africa.
According to the  CAADP programme document, formulated with the support of FAO, farming in Africa accounts for about 60 percent of the total labour force, 20 percent of total merchandise exports and 17 percent of the GDP. Yet, in 2000, Africa also spent US$18.7 billion on food imports and received 2.8 million tons of food aid, more than 25 percent of the world total for that year.
“Until the incidence of hunger is brought down and the import bill reduced by raising the output of farm products”, says the document, “there is no way in which the high rates of economic growth to which NEPAD aspires can be attained".
Supported by private investors, business partners, technical experts and donors, CAADP’s planners aim by 2015 to have expanded African farmland under sustainable land management and irrigation to 20 million hectares, built over $60 billion worth of new roads to improve market access and infrastructure, increased food supplies and reduced hunger by raising the productivity of 15 million small farms, and strengthened the continent’s own capacity for agricultural research and technology through a $58 billion proposal, of which half is to be financed by national governments.
Indeed, African “ownership” is what is hoped will make NEPAD’s agricultural initiative a shining exception to a long list past development failures. All African governments in 2003 promised to devote at least 10% of their national budgets to agriculture by 2008. NEPAD is developing tracking mechanisms to strictly monitor these commitments.
The positive characteristics that set CAADP apart also include acceptance by national governments that many of Africa’s problems are internal, along with a market-based approach to development focusing on economic growth. “NEPAD is committed to workable outcomes, as agreed on by all stakeholders, with a focus on benefits for small-scale farmers and women”, says Richard Mkandawire. “If CAADP succeeds, Africa can hit the six percent annual growth target in agricultural productivity.”
Photo: Oxfam Australia
One of NEPAD’s most promising endeavours offers opportunities to “change the way donors do business”
The Global Donor Platform is moving to mobilise more donor support for the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an ambitious US$240 billion plan largely devised and driven by African countries.
CAADP is the most detailed — and most urgent — of the six programmes under the aegis of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African-led initiative launched in 2001 with financial and technical help from multilateral and bilateral donors, UN agencies and the private sector.
CAADP (see article at right) is the most detailed — and most urgent — of the six programmes under the aegis of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African-led initiative launched in 2001 with financial and technical help from multilateral and bilateral donors, UN agencies and the private sector.
Speakers at “Financing for NEPAD” conference in Dakar, Senegal, in 2002
The programme’s early implementation is being supported by the G8 nations, along with development agencies USAID, DFID, FAO and IFAD, among others. However, “more donors need to rally around the CAADP agenda”, says Platform Co-Chairman Christoph Kohlmeyer. “We need to get behind an African plan, understand how and where to play our role, and do it collectively. When this happens, there will be real impact.”
NEPAD employs an unprecedented peer review mechanism (see diagram below) to make African countries responsible for good governance in social and economic affairs. With the right encouragement, CAADP should bring the same self-critical, constructive approach to agricultural development.
The plan has identified “poor harmonisation of agricultural development… at national, sub-regional and continental levels” as a major problem, indicating that pressure by partner-governments for concerted donor support is likely to be high on the agenda of a planned series of CAADP Country Roundtable meetings scheduled to get underway before end-2006.
The roundtables are likely to convene farmers representatives and members of the private sector, government, civil society and NGOs. The Global Donor Platform could usefully position itself at this point, says Platform Co-Chairman Michael Wales. “The point of the roundtables is to bring donors together with all the other stakeholders”, he says. “We can open CAADP up to a wider group of donors.”
Andrew Kidd, Head of the Africa Growth Team in DFID’s Africa Policy Department, urged the Platform at its April 27, 2006, General Meeting in Brussels to throw its weight behind the initiative. “CAADP’s priorities are the same as the Platform’s,” he said. “There’s a very large commonality of objectives. Working with CAADP will change the way we do business.”
NEPAD's African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM): Where it fits in
Agencies can often plough “a narrow agriculture furrow”, says Dr. Kidd, based around a restricted definition of what is agriculture and limited within an individual country's borders. That can mean they miss out on agriculture’s connections to other economic sectors like infrastructure, finance or trade and overlook agriculture’s broader geographic context.
“But CAADP requires us to think well beyond our traditional sector interests”, he says. “It’s a framework for dealing with agriculture at country, regional and continental level. It’s also a golden opportunity to enact the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and donor harmonisation.”
Photo: Djibi Diallo, Agence Mauritanienne d'Information
Links:
NEPAD
CAADP
CAADP implementation
Framework for African Agricultural Productivity – June 2006 |
Platform News No 2