Funding begins flowing to boost Africa food security

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has received a major boost as several countries have begun drawing on funds from a $22 billion pledge made by the G8.

Under CAADP, African governments are committed to increase their national budget expenditure on agriculture to at least 10 per cent.

The programme, agreed by heads of state at the 2003 summit of the African Union, expects a six per cent growth rate in agriculture every year.

Dr Nalishebo Meebelo, the Country CAADP Process Facilitator at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), told IPS that the overall goal of CAADP is to help African countries achieve food security and higher economic growth through agriculture-led development

Meebelo said leaders at the G8 Summit held in L’Aquila, Italy in 2009 pledged to raise over $22 billion under the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme.

The World Bank is administering the funds.

The United States, Spain, South Korea and Canada as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are the development partners that have contributed towards the finances.

“But there are conditions attached to how countries will be accessing these funds,” Meebelo said.

She said countries need to have gone through the CAADP process, which includes designing national investment plan which contains detailed and fully-costed programmes and signing a CAADP compact.

The compact is a high level agreement between the government, regional representatives and development partners for a focused implementation of the programme.

“The investment plans should have undergone an independent technical review and the plan should also have been tabled before a high-level CAADP business meeting,” Meebelo said.

The countries that have accessed the funds so far are Togo, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi are all expected to also benefit from the fund after they successfully submit their investment plan by the end of September.

CAADP has pillars which guide on sustainable land and water management.