Actionaid Nigeria in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and other stakeholders, has held a national dialogue on the 4th comprehensive African Agriculture Development programme (CAADP) Biennial Review (BR) report.
According to Azubike Nwokoye, ActionAid Nigeria’s Food and Agriculture Programme Manager, the aim of the event which took place on Thursday, 26th of September, in Abuja, was to have conversations as to the neccessary steps and course of action to get better as a country.
He also identified CAADP BR as the main mutual accountability mechanism to track the progress of the African Union Member States.
Speaking, Ibrahim Mohammed, Deputy Director of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, in his presentation on CAADP 4th BR’ report, revealed that the programme was launched in Maputo in 2003 by the African Heads of States and Government, with the sole aim to ensure increase in public spending in the sector, accelerate growth, increase food security and eliminate poverty by 2014.
He stated that the framework of the CAADP was revisited in Malabo by the African Heads of States to launch the second generation of 10 years of CAADP with a seven Malabo commitments to be achieved by 2025.
The seven Malabo Commitment included; recommitment to the principles and values of the CAADP process, commitment to enhancing investment finance in agriculture, commitmentnto ending hunger by 2025, commitment to halving poverty by the year 2025 through inclusive agricultural growth and transformation, commitment to boosting Intra-African Trade in agricultural commodities and services, commitment to enhancing resilience of livelihood and production systems to climate variability and other Related risks and the commitment to mutual accountability to actions and results.
According to Ibrahim, the Biennial Review (BR) tool was introduced under commitment 7 and so far, Four (4) BR has been conducted.
He stated that the benchmark set for country was 9.29, and revealed that the 4th BR report which was adopted by AU Heads of States in February 2024 and officially launched in March 2024, had no single country on track.
Mr Mohammed, however, urged the government to increase the sector budgetary provision to meet the 10 per cent of the total annual national budget for agriculture.
Speaking earlier, the Director Planning and Policy Coordination, of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, represented by the Deputy Director of the Ministry, Abdulmalik Abdulganiyu, said that the meeting was designed to help identify data gaps and possible sources for the next Biennial review process as well as the areas for preparation of policy brief for articulation of projects and programmes towards enhancing the country performance.
“The country noted that credible data source in an evidence based manner, has continued to affect the true situation on the agricultural development under the context of global initiatives (SDGs), Continental (CAADP) and other National Plans in the country.
“The outcomes would help the Ministry to enhance our data generation, analysis & harmonization system for the promotion and development of commodity value chains towards achieving food security, wealth and job creations in the country,” he said.
