By Catherine Nambi
With the 2014 Malabo declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods soon coming to an end in 2025, Intergovernmental Authority on Development IGAD member states are among the African countries still lagging behind in fulfilment of the commitments in the declaration.
Speaking during a Regional Consultation on the African Union Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) 4th Biennial Review Performance of IGAD Member States in Entebbe Collins Amanya, Assistant Commissioner Planning at Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries cited the commitment on allocating 10% of national budgets to agriculture as one of the parameters the IGAD member states have failed to achieve.
He called for political will to enable domestication of the Malabo declaration among the IGAD member states including Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia
“So we think the politicians, the heads of government institutions, the heads of parliament and executive to be able to deliver on that commitment because it’s lacking and we know agriculture sector really employs the biggest population in the IGAD countries so we need that commitment to be done.” Noted Amanya
Representing the Executive Secretary of IGAD Dr. Mohyeldeen Eltohami Taha Hamed, the Director of IGAD’s Economic Cooperation and Regional Integration Division expressed IGAD’s commitment towards ensuring the realization and fulfilment of CAADP commitments at national and regional levels within the member states noting that each level of improvement will be a vehicle to agricultural transformation and a food secure region.
“The performance of the countries, I can say there is a kind of progress in some commitment, but still to reach that target, as indicated in the commitments, there still needs to be a lot of work to be done.” Said Mohyeldeen Eltohami
Dr Sylvia Henga the IGAD Food Security Officer has highlighted the need for member states to invent policies and build resilient agricultural systems to improve agricultural production and end hunger in the region.
“We are encouraging our member states to be able to increase financing for agriculture because without that we cannot increase productivity and we cannot be able then to halve hunger, which was the major Malabo commitment to be able to halve the number of food insecure people by 2025.” Noted Sylvia Henga
She has called for empowerment of women who are the major actors in the agricultural sectors.
Sylvia Henga highlighted, “The role of women in agriculture and technology is very key. One of the things that you notice, most of the smallholder farmers are actually women, the ones that support women groups. If you look at their role in terms of food security, household food security, household economic empowerment, household development, the place of the women becomes very, very key. They are the ones who actually are managing the inputs, but there is need to promote, for example, land. They are having challenges, some of the challenges faced by women include lack of access to land and access to agricultural input, access to credit facilities, and these are hampering their performance.”
According to Sylvia Henga agriculture should also be made attractive to the youths if the countries are to fulfil the commitments in the Malabo declaration.
“Conventional type of agriculture where you have to get to the farm to grow crops is not attractive to them, but we have modern technologies that can attract them. For example, digital climate agricultural systems, another example is just soilless agriculture.We have soilless farming technology, we have aquaponics, we have aquacultures, things that you don’t have to bear the soil to be able to grow.”
the meeting in Entebbe organised by the IGAD Food Systems Resilience Program has brought together experts and other stakeholders for in-depth discussions on performance, to share experiences and lessons and to collectively identify main challenges in fulfilling CAADP commitments and make recommendations for improved performance in the agriculture sector
