KAAA CEO Lucy Muchoki at the AGRF 2016
The Sixth African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) was held in Nairobi, Kenya from and it attracted more than 1500 delegates from 40 countries. The forum proved to be a multi-stakeholder forum that brought together a diverse range of influential change agents from across the African agriculture landscape and around the world including African Heads of State, global business leaders, ministers, farmers and farmer organizations, private agribusiness firms, financial institutions, civil society groups and scientists, as well as international development and technical partners.
Themed “Seize the Moment: Securing Africa’s Rise through Agricultural Transformation,” the forum built on a campaign to “Seize the Moment” that was launched at the 12th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Partnership Platform meeting in Accra, Ghana in April 2016. The campaign is backed by the African Union, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), along with key civil-society groups, farmer groups, companies and development partners.
“Seize the Moment” recognizes the significant progress African countries have made over the last decade to build a foundation for a renaissance in the agriculture sector both on and off the farm across the entire value chain. However, it also recognizes that much more needs to be done. African countries still have a long way to go to achieve food security and ensure equal access to economic opportunity for all Africans.
Today, the continent is facing strong headwinds. The challenges include rapid urbanization; climate change that is generating more stressful growing conditions; significant unemployment in which one in three Africans from 15 to 35 years old are jobless; and chronic malnutrition that has left 58 million children stunted. AGRF partners understand that addressing these issues requires firm political, policy and financial commitments, guided by a clear agenda and strong mechanisms for measuring progress.
The forum aims to accelerate the progress on agriculture’s contribution to economic growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods for all. Over the course of the five-day forum, delegates put forward and began to coalesce around a set of important commitments that the AGRF platform can pursue in the medium-term to realize the ambitious goals laid out in the 2014 Malabo Declaration and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Before the next African Union Heads of State and Government Summit and CAADP biennial review in January 2018, the Alliance for Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) partners will pursue a political, policy and business agenda intended to accelerate smallholder-inclusive agricultural transformation in at least 20 countries; unlock at least US $200 billion in investment in African agriculture; and develop a concise agricultural transformation scorecard for accountability and action under the leadership of African Union institutions.
The mode of action is captured in the following nine action points
. Refresh investment plans to unlock 10 percent of public expenditure on agriculture that can be clearly leveraged to attract significant additional resources from private sector and other partners.
. Actualize commitments made by the private sector through platforms such as Grow Africa or others to bring at least US $20 billion of private investment into African agriculture and galvanize broader investment.
. Develop and launch innovative financing mechanisms, including small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) agricultural financing mechanisms such as incentive-based risk-sharing facilities for agricultural lending, social impact bonds, catalytic financing facilities and agriculture-relevant e-wallet and digital financing mechanisms.
. Support at least 20 countries to develop their agriculture transformation agenda, including identification and significant scaling up of five priority value chains per country with strong links to smallholder agriculture, strong focus on youth employment and a commitment to building resilience to shocks to the agriculture system.
. Identify and unlock five main policy and regulatory bottlenecks per country that are inhibiting agriculture sector growth.
. Establish and support agriculture transformation delivery mechanisms appropriately tailored to the national context and needs in at least 10 countries.
. Support countries to strengthen capacities, including the cultivation of a new wave of public and private sector agriculture transformation leaders.
. Produce and use an agriculture transformation scorecard at the heart of the CAADP biennial review process, including a one-page snapshot for Heads of State.
. Hold at least two Ministerial peer review round tables prior to the 2018 African Union Heads of State and Government Summit to challenge and validate emerging biennial review reports and actions.
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