Posted on September, 5, 2016 at 10:09 am
By Rosemary Mirondo
Dar es Salaam — Tanzania has been rated highly in implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). Africa Union Commission's CAADP coordinator, Mr Komla Bisi, informed BusinessWeek in an email interview that although Tanzania had not reach a 10 percent target on allocation of its annual budget to agriculture, the sector grew.
He said the sector's performance could not only be explained by the budget allocation but also by the quality of the investments.
He said the quality of investments in Tanzania might have played a catalytic role in boosting commercial farming and other type of agribusiness. "Tanzania has recorded a good performance in agriculture sector during the first decade of CAADP implementation." The June 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods includes seven specific commitments to achieve agricultural transformation in Africa by 2025.
The Implementation Strategy and Roadmap aimed at facilitating the operationalisation suggests that countries should strengthen their systemic capacities on capacity for planning, policies and institutions, coordination and partnerships including skills and knowledge, data and statistics, mutual accountability and public private financing.
He said the commitments should enable countries to enhance production and productivity, increase market trade and value chain and ensure resilience of livelihoods and systems and governance of natural resources.
According to him, the success of the pre-condition enables countries to achieve the Malabo Declaration goals. "From 2003 to 2013, during the first decade of the CAADP implementation, seven countries were considered as best performers for agricultural growth. They were Nigeria, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana," he said.
According to him, the countries have different starting points in their agricultural development cycles while in some cases the differences in context may relate to the presence of mineral exports including Nigeria, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone, or post-conflict economic conditions in Sierra Leone. However, he said despite the differences on the starting points, all seven countries were high achievers, in terms of agricultural growth.
Mr Bisi said the seven countries have experienced greater agricultural growth since 2000 than most other African countries. Agricultural growth rates in Nigeria and Ethiopia have been above 6 percent per annum and Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Ghana between 4 and 5.2 per cent while the average across the continent is 3.8 per cent.
He said agriculture is seen as a major contributor of GDP in the countries selected for study with 26 per cent contributed in Ghana and as much as 46 per cent in Ethiopia, compared with a 14 per cent average across the continent.
He noted that whilst it was encouraging, the share of agriculturally contributed GDP is falling as a proportion of the economy. This precisely follows the development path and illustrates the transitional nature of a number of these economies.
Mr Bisi said in Tanzania and Ethiopia large commercial farms actively participate in cash crop and cut flower production. He noted that Tanzania, Nigeria and Sierra Leone have made moderate to good progress in nutrition indicators, but performance on rural poverty reduction has been weak in Tanzania and Nigeria during the first decade of the CAADP implementation. The African Union Commission (AUC) and the Nepad Agency were requested by African Union leaders to facilitate the process for achieving the Malabo Declaration goals.
He said AUC and Nepad Agency started the implementation of the support to CAADP Country Process which will lead to the appraisal and review of current national agriculture investment plans and support to their effective implementation as well the establishment of a biennial review mechanism to develop biennial reports to be submitted each two years to AU heads of State and government.
Source: The Citizen