On 8-9 October, ReSAKSS-Africa Wide coordinator Godfrey Bahiigwa attended the CAADP PP business meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. Preceded by a technical meeting on October 6-7, this was a planning meeting for African Union Commission (AUC), NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA), Regional Economic Communities (RECs) with ReSAKSS participating to explore how to strengthen partnerships aimed at improving coordination and alignment of programs in support of CAADP implementation. This is part of the broader agenda on how to sustain CAADP momentum in the coming 5-10 years.

In 2013, it will be 10 years since the Africa-owned and growth-oriented agricultural framework was endorsed in Maputo in 2003. While this CAADP PP was about strengthening partnerships, discussions about the future of CAADP came up and invoked two strong but opposed reactions from stakeholders: on one hand, some argued that CAADP should have done more in terms of expected outcomes in its 10 years of existence, including food security, incomes, exports, poverty reduction, etc.; on the other hand, some people are more optimistic: they believe much has been achieved under CAADP, especially on progress of getting CAADP understood and accepted, given the fact that more than half of African states have signed CAADP compacts and developed investment plans in the last 4 years.

The debate was premature due to the absence of a paper that examines achievements and challenges of the last 10 years and opportunities in the future, and develops a forward-looking strategy on how to take forward the positives and avoid the negatives at both the country and regional levels. Such a paper will be prepared and discussed at the next CAADP PP meeting March 26-28, 2013 in Addis, hosted by AUC.

An action arising of the PP meeting is for ReSAKSS to align the reporting mechanisms under the overall CAADP M&E framework in support of CAADP implementation, by working with AUC, NPCA as well as a variety of initiatives such as Grow Africa, the New Alliance for Food Security, and the Multi-donor Trust Fund. This will be accomplished through a series of meetings before the next PP meeting in March 2013.

More details will come out in official communique or notes of the meeting. Find more information about the CAADP PP business meeting from Donor Platform website.

The summary was prepared by Godfrey Bahiigwa (G.Bahiigwa@cgiar.org), ReSAKSS-Africa Wide coordinator.