The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is responsible for driving economic integration in Africa on behalf of the African Union. To achieve the much desired socioeconomic development, NEPAD under the auspices of the African Union established the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in July 2003 and focused on improving and promoting agriculture across Africa by raising agricultural productivity in Africa’s countries by at least 6% per year through a target 10% annual budgetary allocation to agricultural sector by 2015.

To date, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Niger and Senegal have exceeded the 10% target and and most countries have made significant progress towards this goal

Progress made so far

Rwanda became the first country to sign the CAADP Compact 2007. As of May 2011, 26 countries had signed the compact and incorporated the CAADP Compact into their agricultural agenda. These countries are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, DRC, Tanzania, Guinea-Bissau, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo among other countries.

How CAADP Works

Strategic functions
NEPAD coordinates CAADP through five strategic functions.

1. Promote CAADP principles
2. Manage communication and information
3. Facilitate and coordinate monitoring and evaluation
4. Link resources with programmes
5. Harness key thinking and experience

CAADP in Kenya

For Kenya, CAADP is an important compact because agriculture is key to her economy and livelihoods. Agriculture contributes about 25% of Kenya’s National GDP not to mention the millions of jobs and non marketed agricultural services, especially in the rural areas, that are not included in the formal GDP calculations.

Against such a critical background, in addition to other policy drivers like the Kenya’s Vision 2030, the country voluntarily acceded to the CAADP Compact on 24 July 2010.  The compact has since been integrated into government structuresand a number of steps have been taken to implement the compact’s provisions.

From the Ministry of Agriculture; the CAADP programme is currently coordinated by the Kenya Agricultural Sector Coordination Unit (ASCU), a Secretariat of ten ministries addressing agriculture and rural development issues. ASCU was launched at the time the Kenyan government acceded to CAADP compact and targets to impelement the Agricultural Sector Development Strategy for 2010-2020 (ASDS).

Linking CAADP to other NEPAD Programmes

1. CAADP as tool for the APRM Vision
2. Youth based farm revival project; ameans to curb youth unemployement and enhance food security

CAADP and Climate Change

A NEPAD climate change framework that aims to entrench climate change issues into NEPAD’s programmes, particularly the CAADP, has been put in place through a World Bank contracted consultant. The framework aims to institutionalize climate change adaptation and mitigation within the NEPAD programmes. So far a team of experts (potential consultants) has been selected and is holding regular meetings to deliberate on the proposals made in the framework. The team is led by Mrs. Dorothy Amwata, a consultant and a lecturer and the South Eastern University College in Kitui. At the initial stages, the experts deliberated on the framework and raised some issues which the World Bank needed to consider in its support for the framework.  The World Bank is yet to give comments but assuming the comments are received, Dorothy Amwata together with other experts shall be formally contracted as consultants to lead the implementation of the framework. According to Mrs. Amwata, the team will select a few projects to implement in close collaboration with NEPAD Secretariats in Africa. 

However, at this stage, Mrs. Amwata indicated that NEPAD, Kenya Secretariat may find it useful to participate in the expert’s meetings organized by the consultants. This could keep the Secretariat in the picture and enable it play key role in the planned implementation of the framework.

To operationalise these plans, initial steps would have to be taken to operationalise CAADP within the NEPAD Kenya Secretariat. The short termactions to achieve this are presented in the next section