All about CAADP

Apr 23rd, 2010 11:31 AM UTC
By Emily Alpert

This week, I had the opportunity to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa to attend the 6th CAADP Partnership Platform meeting. I understand that CAADP, the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program, can be quite a mouthful, but it deserves a lot of credit and support. First of all, it’s an African-led initiative designed to create a framework and process for increasing agricultural productivity and improving food security on the entire continent – no easy task. Second, the process for developing and signing a CAADP compact – a country’s plan of action for agriculture – is inclusive, participatory and involves multiple stakeholders from farmer’s organizations to the private sector. So not only does it exemplify demand-driven, comprehensive and consultative development, but thirdly, it provides a structure into which donors can integrate and coordinate their efforts.

Take all of this together and you meet the L’Aquila principles for improved development assistance – country-led, transparent, demand-driven, comprehensive, and coordinated – all in one place. This is why the G8 at the L’Aquila Summit and the US Global Food Security Initiative have both committed to supporting the CAADP process for their assistance to Africa, but also as a model for development in other regions.

The forum itself has brought together members and representatives of civil society and farmers organizations, African governments, regional organizations, donors and multi-lateral and bi-lateral development agencies. All of these groups have been brought together to share their varied experiences with the CAADP process across the continent, but in particular, to collectively move forward with an agenda for action and implementation. So far, there have been 18 compacts signed. This is quite a lot of progress and commitment on behalf of African leaders, governments and civil society. For one, in order to develop a compact, countries must undergo 8 steps culminating in a Roundtable process meant to include the voices of all stakeholders. But what I think is so important is that these countries are now ready to develop their investment plans and move towards action.

Once a country signs a compact, it can then develop an investment plan that outlines specific programs and projects that investors and donors can finance. Capacity building and strengthening across the stakeholders, including government ministries, to develop technical well-budgeted plans was an identified need by many of the participants. Likewise, figuring out which donors will contribute to the investment plans and how much national governments will contribute themselves is critical to making the CAADP process a success. The conference also addressed the impacts of climate change on agriculture and the importance of integrating both climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies into the investment plans. Others highlighted the importance of livestock and fisheries in African agriculture and drivers of economic growth and improved nutrition and poverty reduction. We also discussed challenges to ensuring meaningful participation of civil society and farmers organizations in the CAADP compact and investment plan development. Representatives from Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda and Senegal and regional organizations all agreed that involvement from the very beginning was essential.

Reflecting upon all I’ve heard and learned over these last few days in formal and informal discussions, my biggest take-away is that the CAADP process is and can continue to be a driver of growth and development in Africa – but it needs our support. The process has gained a lot of momentum recently with several compacts signed, just within the last few months and several more expected shortly. In order to see this process through to implementation, we need to keep providing encouragement. We need to remind our governments and other donors that this is not only a worthwhile endeavor, but a pivotal point in Africa’s development and an opportunity for measurable change that we should not let pass by.

TAGS: Agriculture, Policy News