XYZ AFRICA NEWS BULLETIN @ 20h00 | 18 April, 2016 | FOCUS: 12TH CAADP Platform Meeting Ends in Accra

AFRICA NEWS BULLETIN @ 20h00

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STORIES:

1.                FOCUS:  AGRICULTURAL EXPERT BELIEVES CONVERSATION ON AGRICULTURE BEYOND 12^TH CAADP PLATFORM SHOULD BE ABOUT NUTRITION

CENTRAL AFRICA:

Ø  CAMEROONIAN Journalist Believes 12^th CAADP PP Should Have Involved More Farmers

FOCUS 12TH CAADP Platform Meeting Ends in Accra

It will be recalled that in the 14^th March edition of this Bulletin, which we dedicated to the two-day Retreat for Permanent Secretaries, we explained that the just-ended AU meeting last week is a follow-up of that March meeting.

Organized by the AU Commission and NEPAD on the theme “Innovative Financing and Renewed Partnership to Accelerate CAADP Implementation”, the meeting is an annual continental Forum that seeks to bring together stakeholders in African agriculture.

This 12^th CAADP Meeting further-seeks to highlight how best to accelerate the implementation, through financial innovation and partnerships, for delivering the Malabo Declaration and the African Union Agenda 2063.

With a specific focus on helping build a shared understanding of country and regional needs and expectations to roll out the Implementation Strategy and Roadmap, this meeting launched efforts to form technical partnerships to align with and support implementation.

CAADP continues to face new implementation challenges that will require evolving partnerships, including those that seek to integrate major initiatives and flagship efforts now in place that will help target the Malabo declaration. Throughout this week, we will offer stories from the meeting that will help unpack CAADP for listeners.

We start off with…

Agricultural Expert at the Forum for Research in Agriculture Dr.Aggrey Aguya (who) believes conversations beyond CAADP should involve discussion on nutrition.

Speaking exclusively to E.K.Bensah Jr on the “Africa in Focus” Show last week in the third discussion since 2015 unpacking Africa’s agriculture in CAADP, he explained how food a major concern for stakeholders is to include nutrition within the context of food security.

On the just-ended AU conference, he said that the idea of the 12^th CAADP PP was “to advance from planning to implementation”, and work towards targets. The first decade (2003-2013), he continues, was about planning and investment. From 2014, there was recognition that it was important to walk the talk on building Africa’s agriculture. There was, therefore, a need to develop capacities and partnerships to take CAADP further than before.

Here is what he had to say: [cue AUDIO 1].

Pressed to explain how central the CAADP Country has been in domesticating the continental agenda, he explained that for a while, it “lost momentum and the whole thrust for the second decade of CAADP is to sustain the momentum it started with. The Country teams also lost the momentum”, but he believes there to be a “renewed attention and support for country teams to drive implementation process”, but they would need support in terms of capacity.

For Dr.Aggrey, after the 12^th CAADP PP, the conversation on agriculture needs to raise greater awareness not just on food security, but nutrition, which he describes as “a key area of concern”: [cue:AUDIO 2]

  

CENTRAL AFRICA:

A Cameroonian CAADP Communicator & Journalist-Farmer believes farmers need to play a more central role in continental discussions under the African Union and NEPAD under the CAADP process.

Speaking exclusively to my colleague E.K.Bensah during the 12^th CAADP Partnership Platform meeting last week, Tondong Calestous Jong lamented how the AU and NEPAD can do a lot better in the CAADP conversation by including more government officials and farmers to forums like the 12^th CAADP PP.

In his capacity as a CAADP Communicator, he has been a witness to the process since CAADP started in 2003, to the new decade of Malabo, where there is talk of implementation. His assessment is that both the AU and NEPAD need to be more practical in their engagements.

He believes, for example, that the fifty-four Ministers of Agriculture should have been present at the meeting for interaction with farmers, for example. Given how rare it is for farmers to meet the highest officials in their sector, the 12^th CAADP PP would have offered an opportunity for dialogue. In addition, he believes the AU and NEPA should begin holding Member States accountable on agriculture.

For him, the CEMAC region (comprising six countries from Central African states, including Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea) was conspicuously absent from the participants – as were North Africans. The irony of this is that the Malabo Declaration that has inspired many CAADP discussions was signed in Equatorial Guinea’s capital – from where no participant was present at the conference!

This is what Calestous Jong himself had to say: [cue: Audio 3]

ENDs

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