At the African Union Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in June 2014, Heads of State and Government adopted a remarkable set of concrete agriculture goals to be attained by 2025. The Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods is a set of new goals showing a more targeted approach to achieve the agricultural vision for the continent which is shared prosperity and improved livelihoods. The Malabo Summit reconfirmed that agriculture should remain high on the development agenda of the continent, and is a critical policy initiative for African economic growth and poverty reduction. Re-commitment to the Key Principles and Values of the CAADP Process, through: the pursuit of agriculture-led growth as a main strategy to achieve targets on food and nutrition security and shared prosperity; the exploitation of regional complementarities and cooperation to boost growth; the use of partnerships and alliances including farmers, agribusiness, and civil society, etc. III. Commitment to Ending Hunger in Africa by 2025: a) to accelerate agricultural growth by at least doubling current agricultural productivity levels, by the year 2025. In doing so, we will create and enhance the necessary appropriate policy and institutional conditions and support systems to facilitate: sustainable and reliable production and access to quality and affordable inputs (for crops, livestock, fisheries, amongst others) through, among other things, provision of ‘smart’ protection to smallholder agriculture; supply of appropriate knowledge, information, and skills to users; efficient and effective water management systems notably through irrigation; suitable, reliable and affordable mechanization and energy supplies, amongst others. Section II defines Commitment to Enhancing Investment Finance in Agriculture, such as :a) to uphold our earlier commitment to allocate at least 10% of public expenditure to agriculture, and to ensure its efficiency and effectiveness; b) to create and enhance necessary appropriate policy and institutional conditions and support systems for facilitation of private investment in agriculture, agri-business and agro-industries, by giving priority to local investors; c) to fast-track the operationalization of the African Investment Bank, as provided for in the Constitutive Act of the African Union, with a view to mobilizing and disbursing investment finance for priority agriculture related investment projects. IV. Commitment to Halving Poverty by the year 2025, through Inclusive Agricultural Growth and Transformation, ensuring that the agricultural growth and transformation process is inclusive and contributes at least 50% to the overall poverty reduction target; and to this end we will therefore create and enhance necessary appropriate policy, institutional and budgetary support and conditions. Section V deals with Commitment to Boosting Intra-African Trade in Agricultural commodities and services and to harness markets and trade opportunities, locally, regionally and internationally. Section VI lays down the Commitment to Enhancing Resilience of Livelihoods and Production Systems to Climate Variability and other related risks; to reduce vulnerabilities of the livelihoods of the population through building resilience of systems, resolving: a) to ensure that, by the year 2025, at least 30% of our farm, pastoral, and fisher households are resilient to climate and weather related risks.
2014-06-26