AGRA Launches Policy Initiative to Empower Africa To Shape Home-grown Agricultural Policies
New Initiative Announced for World Food Day Recognizes Policy’s Pivotal Role in Attaining African Food Security
[Français]
DES MOINES, IOWA, and NAIROBI, KENYA (15 October 2009) – The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) today launched an initiative to empower African governments to shape home-grown agricultural policies that provide comprehensive support to smallholder farmers. The initiative is supported by a US$15 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
With an initial focus on five countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania), the initiative will strengthen African agricultural policy-making capacity through training agricultural policy analysts; bolstering policy think tanks; establishing data banks to support evidence-based policy development; and coordinating national policy hubs. It will focus on policies that support farmers in the areas of seeds; soil health; markets and trade; land rights; women’s rights; equity; environmental sustainability; and climate change.
“Unlike farmers everywhere else in the world, African farmers, most of whom are women, receive little or no support from their governments,” said Mr. Kofi A. Annan, Chairman of the AGRA Board and former Secretary-General of the United Nations. “We must change this. The new support to AGRA from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is coming at the right time for Africa, where strong national policy action is essential to end poverty and attain African food security.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced this grant at the World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa, along with a package of nine agricultural development projects totaling $120 million to address long-term food security.
“Melinda and I believe that helping the poorest smallholder farmers grow more and get it to market is the world's single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty,” Gates said.
For this to happen, African farmers need enabling agricultural policies. But Africa’s agricultural policy system is in shambles, following decades of externally-driven policies which gutted public support for agriculture and created a vacuum in Africa’s agricultural policy capacity. External policies imposed through “structural adjustment” programs left tens of millions of farmers locked in poverty, unable to invest in their farms or to access markets.
“We cannot abandon our farmers and be surprised that Africa is in a food crisis,” said Dr. Akin Adesina, AGRA’s Vice President of Policy and Partnerships. “We must replace ‘policies of abandonment’ with policies of comprehensive support for smallholders. African institutions must lead by developing evidence-based and locally relevant policies to transform African agriculture into a sustainable, competitive and highly productive system.”
“Our goal is not to set policy for African countries, but to empower countries, and move beyond policy analyses into policy action,” said Dr. Namanga Ngongi, President of AGRA. “We will give voice to African farmers.”
To ensure that new policies benefit smallholders, the program will strengthen farmers’ policy advocacy platforms, with a special focus on women farmers, to help them gain full and equal access to land security, farm technologies, markets, finance, and extension services.
“AGRA is helping to give African farmers and policy-makers a voice they have lacked for decades,” said Stephen Wazira, Minister of Agriculture of Tanzania. “We need policies that unlock the potential of agriculture, feed our people and support economic development. This initiative will further empower our government to put policy to work for smallholder farmers.”
Policy Impacts
According to Adesina, the tide is turning in favor of African farmers, as nations such as Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Mali, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Ghana and Nigeria are taking new bold steps to revitalize agriculture.
Many more countries are signing up to the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) to provide at least ten percent of their budget in support of agriculture. As these funds become available, effective, locally-determined policies to guide investments will be even more critical. “AGRA will further bolster CAADP efforts at national and regional levels. Success of the green revolution at country levels across Africa is critical for countries to achieve the 6% agricultural growth target that African Presidents agreed to under CAADP” said Adesina.
Policy impact can already be seen in countries like Malawi and Rwanda which are providing comprehensive support to their farmers. Government policies, including seed and fertilizer vouchers for poor farmers, have helped transform Malawi from a net importer to a net exporter of maize for four years running, and fueled a national economic growth rate of seven percent. In Rwanda, policies which increased farmers’ access to quality seed and fertilizers have boosted food production for two straight years. Food production grew by 15% in 2007 and 16% in 2008, as the country embarked on a green revolution program. This has improved national food security, even as 20 million people in neighboring countries must depend on food aid for survival.
AGRA stresses that across African nations, there is no single policy solution for promoting smallholder agriculture. While farmers need direct support, equally important are accelerated investments in public goods such as agricultural research, extension, small-scale irrigation and roads.
“In the long-term, the ability of Africa’s smallholder farmers to adequately feed the continent depends on a policy environment that improves access to agricultural technologies, assures market access, stabilize food prices for the poor, protects the environment and helps farmers adapt to climate change,” said Annan. “That is why this AGRA policy initiative is so important.”
Organizations such as the Economic Commission for Africa, African Development Bank, Africa Union-NEPAD, Regional Economic Communities, the African Economic Research Consortium and the International Food Policy Research Institute will be key partners in the policy initiative.
“We will coordinate with these and other organizations to accelerate comprehensive policies and investments for rapid agricultural growth. Millions of African farmers can no longer wait,” Ngongi said.
####
About the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
AGRA is a dynamic partnership working across the African continent to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. AGRA programmes develop practical solutions to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment. AGRA advocates for policies that support its work across all key aspects of the African agricultural value chain from seeds, soil health and water to markets and agricultural education.
AGRA's Board of Directors is chaired by Kofi A Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Dr Namanga Ngongi, former Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme, is AGRA's president. With support from The Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK's Department for International Development and other donors, AGRA works across sub-Saharan Africa and maintains offices in Nairobi, Kenya, and Accra, Ghana.