Special Edition Special Edition Special Edition Special Edition

August 2003

Editorial

Pre-GFAR 2003 CSO Workshop

Keynote Addresses

• Chairman's Opening Speech
• Ian Johnson's Speech
• Wiseman Nkulhu's
  Speech

From Dresden to Dakar

Roundtable Discussions

Poster Session

Side Events

• CGIAR Regional Priority-setting Report
• Towards a Global Agenda for ICM
• International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources / Global Conservation Trust

Sub-plenary Session on GPPs

• Rural Knowledge
  Systems & Innovation Processes
• Agrobased SMEs & Markets
• Agriculture–Livestock Integration
• Organizational Partnerships for Agricultural Research
• Innovative Policy Directions & Approaches for Sustainable Agricultural Development

Stakeholder Consultations

• NARS
• Farmers' Organizations
• NGOs
• ARIs
• IARCs
• Donor Community
• Private Sector

GFAR 2003 Conference Evaluation

Back to CONTENTS

List of Acronyms 

Keynote Addresses

Emerging Global Issues in Sustainable Development and the Response of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)

Madam Chair, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Despite substantial socio-economic gains in many African countries over the last 30 to 40 years, hunger and poverty remain a major threat to many people, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over 300 million Africans live on less than $1 a day. About 200 million people in Africa are chronically hungry, 30 million require emergency food and agricultural assistance in any one year and in 2003 about 14 million people are on the brink of starvation in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) alone.

In 1998-2000, more than a quarter of the population of Africa was chronically undernourished (202 million people). It is expected that the number of undernourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa will increase from 180 million in 1995/97 to 184 million in 2015. This stands in stark contrast to the millennium goals of halving hunger and poverty by 2015.

The statistics show that Africa is in crisis. Approximately 2.4 million Africans die from AIDS every year; over 28 million Africans live with HIV/AIDS; over 150 million Africans are affected by conflict; 1 million Africans die of malaria every year; 1.2 million Africans die of pneumonia every year; 800 000 African children die of diarrhea before their fifth birthday; 600 000 Africans die of tuberculosis every year; 500 000 African children die of measles each year, and 48 million African children are not in school.

It is this horrific reality that caused African leaders assembled in Sirte, Libya in September 1999 to agree to a paradigm shift in the way Africa conducts its affairs. Deliberations on the need to approach the G8 countries on the issue of African debt developed into a robust discussion about the nature of the challenges facing Africa. The conclusion was that debt cancellation alone, or the tackling of any one issue in isolation, or even a group of issues in an uncoordinated manner, will not solve the problems. What was needed was a holistic, integrated and coordinated agenda for the regeneration of the African continent.

The task of elaborating this idea of a new development agenda for African renewal was assigned to President Mbeki of South Africa, President Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Bouteflika of Algeria. They were later joined by President Wade of Senegal and President Mubarak of Egypt. What finally emerged from their deliberations was the NEPAD base document, i.e. the strategic framework document.

The acceptance of the vision, principles, objectives, goals and priorities outlined in the NEPAD base document by the African heads of state and government at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Lusaka, Zambia in July 2001 ushered in a new era in African development. It may not have appeared significant at the time, but the initiators of NEPAD knew that it was not going to be business as usual any more, particularly as this coincided with a move from the OAU to the African Union (AU), with NEPAD becoming the socio-economic development program of the AU.

Through the NEPAD policy framework, the African leaders jointly accepted responsibility for eradicating poverty and placing their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable development and growth. At the same time, they committed themselves to principles, values, priorities and standards of governance that are in line with international best practice. Furthermore, they committed themselves to people-centred, participatory development processes.

The international community is dealing with major challenges through a global agenda now focused on poverty and sustainable socio-economic development. These issues were addressed at recent international meetings, such as the UN Millennium Summit 2000 (MDG to cut hunger and poverty in half by 2015), World Food Summit in Rome 2002, Financing for Development Conference, Mexico 2002, and World Summit on Sustainable Development, South Africa 2002.

NEPAD identifies a number of priorities in order to address the crisis mentioned in line with the issues that have emerged internationally.

Realizing that Africa can only take its proper place in the international community if it gains economic strength, African heads of state and government have set an ambitious target of 7% annual growth rate in GDP over the next 20 years to eradicate poverty, achieve food security and build the foundations of sustainable economic development on the continent.

NEPAD, which seeks to complement other African initiatives and to use existing frameworks for action, concentrates on priorities organized under two broad themes: (1) Peace, security, democracy and political governance; and (2) Economic and corporate governance. Within these themes, the priorities are: (1) agriculture and food security and intra-African trade; (2) health and education; (3) human resource development; (4) environment; (5) access to markets; (6) infrastructure; (7) science and technology; (8) capital flows (ODA, debt, investment); (9) regional integration; and (10) reversing Africa's marginalization.

NEPAD views agriculture as the key sector for achieving economic advancement and poverty alleviation in Africa because agriculture provides 60% of all employment, it constitutes the backbone of most African economies, and in most countries it is still the largest contributor to GDP and the biggest source of foreign exchange, accounting for about 40% of the continent's hard currency earnings. It is also the main generator of savings and tax revenues.

However, there was a progressive growth in food imports in the last years of the 20th century, with Africa spending an estimated US$18.7 billion in 2000 on imports. Part of Africa's imports is food aid, with the continent receiving 2.8 million tons of food aid in 2000.

Within the overall vision of NEPAD, the vision for agriculture seeks to maximize the contribution of Africa's largest economic sector to achieving the ambition of a self-reliant and productive Africa that can participate fully in the world economy. The NEPAD goal for the sector is an agriculture-led development that eliminates hunger and reduces poverty and food insecurity, thereby opening the way for an expansion for exports. This is expected to put the continent on a higher economic growth path within an overall strategy of sustainable development and preservation of the natural resource base.

The vision for agriculture is that the continent should, by the year 2015:

• Attain food security (in terms of both availability and affordability and ensuring access of the poor to adequate food and nutrition)
• Improve the productivity of agriculture to attain an average annual growth rate of 6%, with particular attention to small-scale farmers, especially focusing on women
• Have dynamic agricultural markets among nations and between regions
• Have integrated farmers into the market economy including better access to markets, with Africa to become a net exporter of agricultural products
• Achieve more equitable distribution of wealth
• Be a strategic player in agricultural science and technology development
• Practise environmentally sound production methods and have a culture of sustainable management of the natural resource base (including biological resources for food and agriculture) to avoid their degradation.

How do we end the food crisis and kick-start African agriculture? The African ministers of agriculture and rural development at the World Food Summit-five years later (WFS-fyl) endorsed the NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) on 9 June 2002, as a blueprint for renewal and recovery of the continent's agricultural sector. The program is in line with the WFS and the WFS-fyl and it sets out how best, within the NEPAD framework, the African agriculture sector can contribute towards the achievement of one of the Millennium Development Goals that of halving poverty and hunger by 2015. To achieve these goals, the action plan presents broad themes of primary opportunities for investment to reverse the crisis situation facing Africa's agriculture, which has made the continent import-dependent, vulnerable to even small changes of climate, and dependent excessively on food aid.

The four pillars that form the basis of CAADP are: (1) Extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems; (2) Rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for improved market access; (3) Increasing food supply and reducing hunger; and (4) Agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption. A summary of the potential for investment in agriculture is shown in Box 3.

The NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) has been prepared by FAO in cooperation with the NEPAD Steering Committee. It offers guidance to member governments on a wide range of aspects of operationalization and action to revitalize African agriculture. The proposed initiatives focus on investment in three pillars that can make the earliest difference to Africa's agricultural crisis, plus a fourth long-term pillar for research and technology. The fundamental mutually reinforcing pillars on which to base the immediate improvement of Africa's agriculture, food security and trade balance are: (1) extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems; (2) improving rural infrastructure and market access including inputs and finance; (3) increasing food supply and reducing hunger; and (4) agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption.

In April this year, under the auspices of NEPAD, an action plan was developed by the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and their development partners, i.e. FAO, WFP, IFAD, DBSA, FARA, ISNAR, the Millennium Hunger Task Force and development banks, to address the food crisis and kick-start African agriculture.

Africa's heads of states have designated the RECs to coordinate the implementation of all NEPAD-related programs and projects of sub-regional nature. The African Union has clearly recognized these organizations as the building blocks for the integration of the continent. These regional groupings are already involved in many ways, such as in the consolidation of democracy and good political and economic governance, as well as macro-economic convergence and trade and integration. A sub-regional approach takes advantage of economies of scale and can reach a critical mass that would drive productivity and income growth at both the country and regional levels. It also contributes to enhanced efficiency through increased competition and reduced transaction costs. It is instrumental to stabilize national policy frameworks and thus is favorable to investment.

More specifically, regional organizations would be responsible for identification, preparation and appraisal of bankable projects within their member countries and for coordinating their implementation. However, implementation of these operations would solely remain the responsibility of national governments and the private sector.

The CAADP presents a plan of action that provides the path towards the implementation of CAADP. The plan of action has laid out a foundation for a framework and process of NEPAD program/project implementation. This includes the development of criteria for selection of programs/project, the program approach mechanism, and the timetable for the implementation. More specifically, as a head start, the document presents selected program/project profiles as NEPAD flagship projects, under the four pillars of CAADP, and defines a calendar for the implementation process of these flagship projects.

In the first round, it was considered desirable to identify some projects as short term and others for the longer horizon. Among the short-term ones are initiatives for which programs and projects have already been prepared or those where such preparation is imminent or urgent. So far 17 flagship projects have been presented by RECs (projects from CEN-SAD and AMU are forthcoming). See Table 1 for a summary of these projects and the amount of investment required. Tentatively, it is estimated that flagship projects would cost US$15.7 billion over their implementation period of 6 to 7 years. The detailed individual Project Profiles and Concept Notes are available upon request.

Table 1. Flagship Projects 2003-2009

Development interventions are required immediately and for the long-term. As a matter of urgency NEPAD is developing a Disaster Prevention and Emergency Response Food Crises Program to address the food crisis in cooperation with the World Food Program, FAO, the African Development Bank and the Regional Economic Communities. This program will:

• Strengthen the immediate response to the crisis including relief efforts, and strengthen early warning systems currently in place
• Address the food insecurity and HIV/AIDS, which should be seen as core to the food crisis and hence requiring focused interventions
• Address the question of food reserve systems, including the undertaking of special studies for each of the regions to explore what systems(s) would work, or would be most appropriate for each region or country
• Strengthen NEPAD's capacity in leveraging financial and political support as well as advocacy work with key partners in addressing both the short- and long-term food requirements for Africa.

Over the past two decades there has been an overall decline in support of agriculture, by both national governments and the international donor community. NEPAD is committed to mobilizing African resources from governments as well as from the private sector. We would like to, specifically, call on governments in Africa to increase their investment in the agricultural sector.

NEPAD is aware of the central role that civil society organizations, particularly farmers' associations, will play in the renewal of Africa's agriculture. With the assistance of the International Fund for Agricultural Development and in consultations with the RECs, NEPAD will mobilize the African farmers' associations and other civil society organizations to participate fully in the implementation of NEPAD's agricultural vision.

NEPAD recognizes the important role of research and technology in stimulating agriculture production in Africa. NEPAD will in this regard be delighted to explore innovative ways of cooperation with the various international research organizations gathered here, to explore how best to stimulate agriculture production. In particular NEPAD is currently focusing on the expansion of Nerica rice and cassava in West Africa and the transfer of these crops to Southern and East Africa. NEPAD is also looking into the expansion of banana tissue culture in East Africa as well as the transfer of this technology to Southern Africa and subsequently to the rest of Africa.

In the long-term, NEPAD sees the international research community participating in the long-term agricultural development agenda in Africa through the continuing search for new innovations for small-holder producers. Along with various international organizations, NEPAD wishes to explore some of the following agricultural initiatives with a view to enhancing livelihood opportunities for small-holder producers:

• promoting small-scale water-harvesting techniques
• school feeding programs that focus on locally produced food
• soil fertility restoration through agroforestry and mineral fertilizers
• seed multiplication
• engendering and democratizing agricultural production
• facilitation of micro-financing, enhancing and diversifying livelihood opportunities for vulnerable groups including youth and women.

Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu
Chairman of the NEPAD Steering Committee

Print version

GFAR Secretariat
c/o FAO, SDR, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla - 00100 Rome, Italy
Tel. +39.06.5705.3413 Fax +39.06.5705.3898
E-mail: