Family farming is a central piece of the agenda for African transformation. Declared the United Nations (UN) Year of Family Farming and the African Union (AU) Year of Food Security, 2014 will be particularly interesting, with key challenges for family farming in terms of policy directions, international processes and efforts on the ground. Ten reasons why: 1) The UN sheds its light on family farming To achieve a pro-family farming environment tailored to local conditions, the UN aims to reposition family farmers at the center of agricultural, environmental and social policies in national agendas. The ...
+++ ECDPM Challenges blog series. Post number six +++ Declared the UN Year of Family Farming and the AU Year of Food Security, 2014 will be particularly interesting. With key challenges in terms of policy directions, international processes, and Europe-Africa relations, conflicts can certainly arise; but next year we could also see some break-through in all these three dimensions. Policy dilemmas The main challenge, in terms of policy choices, is going to be related to the agricultural model that public and private decision-makers promote through their efforts to enhance food security in Africa. Some believe ...
After decades of protocols and high-level declarations without implementation, regional integration is slowly happening in many parts of Africa, often driven by commercial moves. More recently, regional markets and especially public-private-partnerships (PPP) are becoming fashionable approaches to promote food security. Many bottlenecks remain, however, both in policy reform follow-up and asymmetric benefits for entrepreneurs along the food value-chains. RECs, their member states and interested stakeholders should pilot concrete results to show that regional integration can become more credible and effective, and contribute to food security. As part of ECDPM’s support to RECs and the Comprehensive ...
The Vice-President of Liberia, Joseph Boakai, the Minister of Agriculture of Liberia, Florence Chenoweth, and other West African public officials met with representatives of the Network of Peasant Organisations and Agricultural Producers in West Africa (ROPPA) in Monrovia to talk about progress in agricultural development over the past decade. (full length interviews published below) M. Boakai stated that his government is increasing public investment in agriculture. However the President of ROPPA insisted that policy-makers in Liberia and other countries of the region should do more to support family farms. Djibo Bagna asserted that it is ...
Emerging economies are being fairly reluctant towards fully aligning their agricultural support to the CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme) framework. In a study undertaken by ECDPM, “Emerging economies and the changing dynamics in African agriculture: what role for CAADP?, we interviewed several official representatives from countries such as India, Brazil, China and South Korea who all stated that CAADP in its current form offered limited attraction. The framework is still seen as heavily influenced and guided by traditional OECD donors, and aligning with this type of encompassing policy framework would not be consistent with ...
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is undertaking efforts to accelerate the implementation of their regional agricultural policy, the ECOWAP/Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Programme (CAADP), and its related regional and national investment plans. In that context, ministers of the 15 ECOWAS member states are scheduled to get together from 16 to 20 September for the Agriculture/Environment/Water Resources Specialised Ministerial Committee. They’ll meet in Lomé, Togo, for the long awaited launch of the Regional Food and Agriculture Agency housed there, which is being created to facilitate the implementation of regional ECOWAP/CAADP initiatives. The ministerial meeting ...
This article was co-authored by Jeske van Seters. [updated 27 March 10.00 CET] This blog will be updated with the latest developments during 25-26 March 2013 from the African Union Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Second day and post-PP thoughts: Looking back at the PP after its closing, you could question the added-value of this annual event for the implementation of CAADP and the achievement of results and impact. Does it serve the CAADP purpose or is it a waste of time and money? Seemingly supporting the latter point of view, critical remarks by participants on ...
