Fourth CAADP Biennial Review Brief: South Africa

AUTHOR

Winnie Kasoma-Pele, Matchaya Greenwell, and Bongeka Mdleleni

SERIES NAME

Biennial Review

YEAR

2025

ABSTRACT

 

The Malabo Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods is a set of goals adopted by Heads of State and Government of the African Union in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (AUC 2014). To translate the seven Malabo commitments into results, a call for action was made by the Heads of State and Government for the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Union Development Agency NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD), in collaboration with partners, to initiate a review process to be conducted on a biennial basis starting 2017, with an objective of tracking, measuring, and reporting progress toward achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025.

 

Four Biennial Reviews (BR) have been conducted—the inaugural BR in 2017, the second BR in 2019, the third BR in 2021, and the most recent BR concluded in 2023. 

 

As part of fulfilling Commitment 7 on mutual accountability, the fourth BR Report (BR4) and the Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard (AATS) were launched at the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the AU Heads of State and Government in March 2024 (AUC 2024). 

 

This brief focuses on South Africa’s performance in BR4, assessing the challenges faced and lessons learned by the South African team during the review process. The brief also reviews policy and programmatic changes in South Africa that can be attributed to the first BR (BR1) prepared in 2017, as well as BR2, BR3, and BR4. It concludes by highlighting the policy actions necessary for South Africa to meet the Malabo Commitments by 2025.

 

A key recommendation from the analysis indicates that to fulfill the commitment on halving poverty through agriculture by 2025, South Africa should place greater focus on growth in agricultural value-added, poverty reduction, and narrowing the gap between farmgate and wholesale prices for agricultural commodities.

PUBLISHER

AKADEMIYA2063