The second Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) design meeting took place at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a view to map out a strategy for the second phase of the MDTF.
Established in 2008 at the request of the African Union as a programmatic trust fund, the CAADP MDTF, whose mandate ends December 31, 2015, was intended to support the efforts of African agencies engaged in CAADP processes.
The MDTF supports the activities of African institutions to lead the adoption and utilization of CAADP across the continent and to facilitate coordination of development partner support to activities under CAADP and to African agriculture more broadly.
While officially opening the design meeting, AUC Director of Rural Economy and Agriculture, Dr. Abebe Haile Gabriel, said the CAADP MDTF had been instrumental in supporting African institutions in delivering their mandates and capacity building services in rolling out CAADP. Dr. Abebe stressed the importance of building on what CAADP has done in the last decade to deliver positive changes that impact directly on lives and livelihoods of people through agricultural transformation.
“The MDTF 2 should therefore, focus on country implementation results and impact,” he said. “The outcome of this meeting is going to be very crucial in contributing towards the design of a financing mechanism that will help in accelerated implementation of CAADP in the next decade.” Speaking during the opening of the meeting, World Bank representative, David Neilson, noted that there have been real successes in African agriculture achieved through CAADP.
He said the design of MDTF 2 would focus on pertinent issues meant to sustain the CAADP momentum and would also reflect on experiences and lessons learnt in the last decade of CAADP.
Since its launch in 2003, CAADP has Improved Agricultural Planning since more than 28 out 54 countries have developed national agricultural investment plans – and these have become their medium term expenditure frameworks for agriculture. Another dozen countries are now developing their own plans. Several countries have implemented first round investment plans and are now developing second generation agricultural investment plans (e.g., Rwanda and Sierra Leone).
Another achievement is Improved Agricultural Growth. Annual agricultural GDP growth for countries south of the Sahara has averaged nearly 4 percent since 2003, well above agricultural GDP growth rates for the previous several decades. Several countries are already meeting the CAADP target of an annual rate of agricultural growth of 6 percent.
Also, there has been a greater Public Expenditure in Agriculture. On average, public agricultural expenditures have risen by over 7 percent per year across Africa (more than 12 percent per year in Africa’s low income countries) since 2003 – nearly doubling public agricultural expenditures since the launch of CAADP.
The continent has its own Agricultural Programs and Agenda. The programme has elevated attention to agriculture and has put African leaders in a stronger position than ever before to lead African approaches to agriculture at every level.
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