Posted on February, 11, 2022 at 08:12 am
NONE State Actors (NSA) in the country have advocated for increased budget allocation to the agricultural sector by the government as per the Malabo Declaration.
The stakeholders made the call in Dodoma during the just concluded virtual call meeting on 'How the media can strengthen accountability and use of Biennial Review result' - ahead of the third Biennial Review BR 3 launch.
The meeting was organised by ActionAid Tanzania and its partners, with support from the African Union (AU). It aimed at developing a common advocacy agenda for evidence-based agricultural policy making and programming that would cast broad light on the progress of implementation of the Malabo Commitments.
Physical participants were drawn from across the AU member states covered under ActionAid's Scaling up Public Investment in Agriculture projects in Tanzania, while other participants across the continent connected via zoom.
Speaking at the meeting, participants, mostly women drawn from different regions countrywide under the auspices of Small-holder Women Farmers Forum (SWFF), said there was a need for the government to push for better public financing for the agriculture sector in the country.
Ms Shem Uleje from Mtwara Region challenged the government to strategise on how to utilise agricultural research data and constructively engage the government towards meeting the 2014 Malabo Declaration on agricultural financing.
"The findings should also be distributed to the district councils and village governments to assist farmers obtain information on where to produce and sell their produce," she noted.
The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) through the Malabo Declaration focuses on the need to transform agricultural sector in the continent in order to meet countries to meet the objectives of the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025 that requires African countries to allocate at least 10 percent of its national budget to the agriculture sector.
The review meeting with the theme: "Strengthening Accountability and Utilization of the biennial review reports - Count Down to BR3 launch", sought to remind AU Heads of State and Government in June, 2014 at Malabo, of the commitment to the adopted CAADP principles, to provide effective leadership for the attainment of specific goals by the year 2025, including ending hunger, tripling intra-African trade in agricultural goods and services, among other goals.
That outcome had become popularly known as the Malabo Declaration.
Source: Daily News