CAADP Non-state actors enhancing accountability, knowledge dissemination in agriculture

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Non-state actors play a key role in realising the aspirations of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) by promoting accountability among stakeholders and disseminating knowledge and information to the grassroots, especially smallholder farmers.

This emerged yesterday during the first day of the 15^th Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security (ADFNS) Commemoration and the 20^th Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) Partnership Platform in Harare, Zimbabwe

The workshop is running under the theme “Two Decades of CAADP Agenda: Cultivating the Nexus of Nutrition, Agrifood Systems, and Education for Africa’s Growth.”

In a speech for Mrs. Estherine Lisinge-Fotabong, the Director of Agriculture, Food Security, and Environmental Sustainability, at the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), during a session titled “The Use of the Biennial Review (BR) Results: changes to policy and implementation at the process, outputs, and outcomes levels,” Dr.Clement Adjorlolo, thePrincipal Programme Officer for Agriculture and Rural Transformation in the same institution, said the session was meant to explore the transformative use of the CAADP Biennial Review results in shaping policies and advancing implementation practices within the agrifood sectors and the broader development agenda.

“This afternoon, we aim to bridge the gap between BR outcomes and actionable strategies at the national and regional levels. Distinguished participants, you will agree that CAADP BR represents a beacon of progress and accountability in championing the review and reporting as a crucial tool for enhancing accountability and gaining invaluable data-driven insights and evidence that pave the way for policy reform and innovation in implementation,” she said.

Speaking during a Fire Side Chat titled “Reflections on the use of the BR report for policy and implementation changes”, Constance Okeke, a member of the CAADP Non-state Actors Coalition Group (CNG), underscored the invaluable contribution of non-state actors to the success of CAADP processes.

“We want to thank the AUC for the opportunity they’ve always been giving. And I’m sure they know that without the non-state actors, most of the continental agreements and policies that they have come up with might never really go down to the grassroots because we, as non-state actors, are the watchdog.

“We are the voices of the society. We must make sure that whatever our governments sign up to, the people must know and they should also be held accountable. And so as non-state actors, prior to the advent of the BR review processes, where the member states felt it was important to hold each other accountable, through reporting every two years, the non-state actors were working in silos in different groups, countries, and continents.

“Well, we felt there was a need to come together and mobilise and have one voice. So I have come and I have one voice because that is the only way we’ll be able to make an impact so we started mobilising, and organising ourselves at the different levels,” Okeke said.

She said non-state actors have a presence in all the regional economic communities across the continent and can bring people down from the grassroots across the continent.

“And we have a constituency strength of youth, which are in almost all the countries. We have smallholder women farmers in these three regions, under the auspices of AKIWOF, which is the African Kilimanjaro Women Farmers Forum. They have their leadership here. We have farmer organisations made up of different national platforms of farmers. We also have media groups as well as civil society and private sector players. Then we all came together and developed a structure at the continental level so that we could easily pass on information. We try as much as possible to make sure that we are integrated into the whole CAADP process,” she added.