Senator Mustapha advocates for National Summit on Agriculture - NaijaAgroNet

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The Chairman, Senate Committee on Agricultural Production, Services & Rural Development, Senator Saliu Mustapha has advocated for a National Summit on Agriculture, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Senator Mustapha, who represents Kwara Central Senatorial zone at the National Assembly, made this declaration at the opening ceremony of a two-day Parliamentary Retreat on Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) cum Biennial Review (BR) and Food Systems Transformation in Nigeria on Tuesday at Radisson Blu Ikeja, Lagos.

USAID lifts African CNC with agro transformation grant

NaijaAgroNet:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is advancing undisclosed grant to the Africa Lead II and the CAADP Non-State Actors Coalition (CNC) in support of initial CAADP four countries including Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This was a key resolution from the just ended meeting of Africa Lead II and the CAADP Non-State Actors Coalition (CNC) in Ghana.

The grant is to support CAADP in Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, and Kenya in the first phase.

The official communique from the meeting made available to NaijaAgroNet invited interested organizations to submit a brief concept paper in order to earn the chance to apply for resources and support, build relationships and networks with key actors in CAADP, and put their idea into action.

The grant activities, NaijaAgroNet reports, would help to create and effectively bring about approaches towards improving citizen engagement in national food security investment priorities as outlined by the CAADP themes.

NaijaAgroNet equally reports that interested non-state actors should submit proposals with focus on aligning Non-State Actors (NSA) programme design and development to the CAADP agenda to support relevant National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) priorities.

Also, NaijaAgroNet  reports that proposal should include on how to make use of agricultural performance data relevant to specific CAADP themes for advocacy and strategic communication purposes; and ready to generate relevant data sets to support the ongoing monitoring of CAADP progress.

“Applicants may propose new projects or scale up small projects that have demonstrated success. Awardees will be expected to share evaluation results and key lessons, and periodically disseminate activities and outcomes with the broader community.  If your organization is working towards creative solutions for these objectives in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, or Senegal, please review the application and submit your idea,” our source told NaijaAgroNet.

Chuks Egbune/GEE 
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AGRF 2016: Nigeria, 12 others lead in CAADP implementation

NaijaAgroNet:

The Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has listed Nigeria and 12 other countries on the continent as those leading in the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), reports NaijaAgroNet.

CAADP is the African Union’s initiative created in 2003, with a component part of CAADP being its call for African governments to allocate at least 10 per cent of the national budgets to agriculture and to aim for six per cent annual growth in the sector.

This was contained in the African Agriculture Status Report (AASR) unveiled on Tuesday at the on-going annual African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF 2016) at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya.

The lead-authors including Mr. David Ameyaw of AGRA and Prof. Thomas Jayne of Michigan State University, as well as the former president of AGRA and chairman of AASR, Dr. Namanga Ngongi, acknowledged those making progress and listed what they called early adopters to comprise, Nigeria, Benin, Burundi, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Togo.

AASR 2016 underscored the differences when compared among countries that signed up early on CAADP between 2007 and 2009 against those that have not yet signed.

According to them, after decades of stagnation, Africa has commenced to enjoy sustained agriculture productivity growth since 2005, and as a result, poverty rates have declined in places like Ghana, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso.

Also, NaijaAgroNet gathered from the report that agriculture has had its biggest impact in countries that moved quickly to embrace CAADP.

The AGRA report further noted that even if they didn’t hit the 10 per cent targets, early adopters of the CAADP goals have seen productivity on existing farmlands rise between 5.9 to 6.7 percent per year.

This, the report pointed out gave a boost in turn by spurring a 4.3 per cent average annual increase in overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

As stated by the AGRA report on evaluation of its 10 years as a body known as AASR, emphasized that those later to the game achieved anywhere from a 3 to 5.7 per cent growth in farm productivity and a 2.4 to 3.5 per cent increase in GDP.

Equally, AASR noted that countries that sat on the sidelines saw farm productivity rise by less than 3 per cent and GDP rise by only 2.2 per cent.

The trend, according to AGRA Status Report, is similar for declines in malnutrition, with countries that have embraced the CAADP process experiencing annual declines ranging from 2.4 to 5.7 per cent, while those who have not averages only a 1.2 per cent decline.

Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/GEE

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Pix: L-r: Dr. Ousmane Badiane is the Africa Director for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Dr. Namanga Ngongi, chair of African Fertiiser Agricultural Partnership (AFAP), co-lead author, Prof. Thomas Jayne and David Ameyaw, lead author and Head, Monitoring and Evalution, AGRA, with copies o the report on display.

Improving agriculture with open data journalism - NaijaAgroNet

Features@NaijaAgroNet:

A weeklong open data workshop for a section of Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Journalists Network, recently ended in Nairobi, Kenya, with a call for embrace and more training in media sphere. REMMY NWEKE who was there for NaijaAgroNet reports.

Open data training kicks off for CAADP journalists

NaijaAgroNet:

A week-long open data training for members of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Journalists Network kicked off in Hilton Hotels, Nairobi, Kenya, reports NaijaAgroNet.

CAADP, NaijaAgroNet gathered, is a growth-focused on agricultural development agenda by African Union (AU) Heads of States and Government, aimed at increasing agriculture growth rates to a minimum of six per cent annually to create wealth.

According to the Programme Manager, Policy, Markets and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) at CTA, Lamon Rutten, the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is leading the partnership for the open data training holding in Nairobi, Kenya from July 25-28, 2016.

This training, Rutten said, is part of the Global Open Data for Impact and Capacity Development on Agriculture and Nutrition (GODIVAN) scheme, a Department for International Development (DFID) project, implemented under a joint venture of international partners with the aim to increase production of the agricultural sector, improved nutrition for consumers and more evidence-based policy making, in which these desired changes are based on enabling communities practically engage with open data.

NaijaAgroNet also gathered that within the context of this project, CTA in partnership with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Agency as facilitated by Local Development Research Institute (LDRI), is organising this 4-day open data training with the goal to build the capacity of media practitioners so as to monitor progress and report on the implementation of the CAADP through the use of agriculture data and research.

Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/ED, Ops

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Opinion: No option but to innovate for business of agriculture

Opinion@NaijaAgroNet:

Of all the challenges that Africa faces, there is one that transcends and embraces all the others: I mean agriculture. Our continent today runs the risk of missing a unique opportunity to develop and offer its youth the jobs it has the obligation to provide if it wants to avoid social implosion.

Agriculture, which employs or provides livelihoods to 60% of the population while contributing 20-30% to Africa’s GDP, is the sector that could by itself enable to save the greatest number of Africans from extreme poverty while giving them their dignity back.

And yet, it typically attracts less than 5% of lending from financial institutions on the continent, leaving farmers and agricultural enterprises starved of the capital they need to operate and grow their businesses.

The scope for growth is all the more important that the situation is highly paradoxical: Africa imports the equivalent of $ 50 billion of food every year. Yet more than half of the arable land unexploited in the world are on the continent!

The 12th CAADP PP taking place in Ghana this week is organised around the theme “Accelerating Implementation of CAADP through Innovative Financing and Renewed Partnership”. The theme reflects the urgency being placed on implementation by the African Union and its members.

To solve the agricultural equation, we must join forces and continue our efforts to define a common agricultural policy. In 2003, in Maputo, we really started to turn the corner in laying the foundations for pan-African agricultural initiatives. The Heads of State and Government of the African Union then decided to devote 10% of their national budgets to agriculture. In 2014, in Malabo, they reiterated their commitment to further increase investment, both public and private, in agriculture.

Innovative financing will be key in unlocking Africa’s Green Revolution. Innovative financing is a means of mobilizing additional resources for investment in agriculture or solving long-running market failures that can unlock private investment. Now we should aim at a growth model that is public-sector enabled, and private sector scaled.

Because of the rural and dispersed nature of agricultural production, where banks and formal financial institutions often lack a presence, mobile technology provides a convenient and low-cost distribution channel to reach farmers and agro-enterprises with electronic payments and information products, as well as savings, credit, and insurance products, among others. It can also help to transfer targeted financial support for small farmers and agribusiness.

Investments in infrastructure will also help drive increased private investment and production in the agriculture sector. Often resulting in public goods that benefit a broad base of economic activity, investments in irrigation, transport and market infrastructure in particular are critical to improving economic returns and productivity in the agriculture sector.

The next step is to put in place a system that ensures the prices and the flow (or storage) of production, combined with a system of variable levies at the external borders of Africa (taxes on imports) protecting productions potential competition from products from outside. This will require innovative financial mechanisms and technologies as well.

A proactive agricultural policy should be common because it requires us to share not only our resources, but also our minds and our wills. It should be common because it cannot be implemented without regional infrastructure, energy and logistics in particular, that will allow our farmers to compete and enter into a process of value creation. We should harness the latest innovations and technologies because Africa has no other option but to leapfrog if it wants to realize its tremendous potential.

*A contribution by Ibrahim Assane Mayaki is CEO of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

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CNC contributed actively in Malabo declaration, urges RWFF to join

NaijaAgroNet:

The Comprehensive African Agriculture Programme (CAADP) Non State Actors Coalition (CNC) has said it contributed actively in the Malabo declaration, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This was made known by one of the leading light of anchors of CNC and Livelihoods Thematic Manager at a member organization, the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD), Ms Fatou Mbaye at the general assembly of the Rural Women Farmers Forum (RWFF) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

She said that so far, CNC has five strategy and 18 months action plans in place.

CNC, she also said has a joint work-plan between Africa Lead II and CNC which is being finalized, even as they held an official launch of CNC which was inaugurated by African Union Commission (AUC) leadership led.

Mbaye further said that the coalition has developed Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) between the AUC and CNCs and another one for the CNC membership. 

These, she said, still waiting for AUC feedback as it is undergoing some internal processes.

She explained that CAADP aims to achieve an agriculture-led socio-economic growth that will create wealth, tackle poverty and reduce hunger which requires broad and inclusive coalitions committed to acting in concert to improve the sector’s policies, programming and institutions.

Equally, Mbaye said, CAADP recognizes the need to transform African agriculture as imperative to building broad and inclusive coalitions of state and non-state actors.

The Non-State Actors (NSAs), she said, are actors outside of the government, who share the vision and objectives of CAADP.

Some of the NSAs, she listed to include, the private sector, farmer organizations, associations and networks, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), women organisations, academic and research organizations, faith-based organizations, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), media, labour unions and youth organisations.

She therefore urged aforementioned stakeholders to join forces with CNC and particularly, the Rural Women Farmers Forum (RWFF) to key into the benefits and objectives of CNC to promote agriculture and specifically farming on the continent as it concerns women in rural areas.

“Join the CNC for inclusive agriculture, food policies and more actions to end hunger and malnutrition in Africa by 2025,” she said, enjoining them to contact another CNC top notch, Ms Constance Okeke of ActionAid International who is in-charge of membership.

+ITRealms DSA @NaijaAgroNet #RWFF2015

 

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Bissi highlights essence of media on CAADP strategies

NaijaAgroNet:

The essence of media participatory roles in scaling up the strategies of Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has been highlighted, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The CAADP coordinator, Mr. Komla Bissi shared some insights with NaijaAgroNet on the importance of media in achieving CAADP strategies, saying that farmers and related actors both states and non-states should be regularly kept informed of CAADP initiatives, especially developments projects capable of assisting them to improve on whatever is on the ground at any particular time.

This, he said, gave AU and CAADP precisely, the impetus to support the on-going first meeting of the Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment in Addis Ababa.

He also said that his office would continue to work very closely with the communication units within the African Union organs to ensure that media participate in most of the meetings where initiatives are structured so as to carry the media industry along thereby encouraging them to disseminate right and knowledgeable information for the African people.

In addition, this will assist development partners to keep a tap on African efforts in increasing agricultural productivity and fight against hunger as well as enlightenment of citizens and most essentially the farmers and farmers-based organizations adequately.

Equally, Bissi said, CAADP would continue to seek better ways of collaboration to make media practitioners’ job easier and CAADP initiatives based on AU policies easily adopted by the stakeholders like on issue of climate change among others.

He urged journalists, precisely those in CAADP Journalist Network to see their role as essential to bridging the gap between African farmers and government policies.

NaijaAgroNet recollects that CAADP is a programme of the African Union in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) established in July 2003 with focus on improving and promoting agriculture across the African continent as part of efforts aimed at eliminating hunger and reducing poverty through agriculture.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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