Agriculture, Trade and Market Access

Documents

UN Cluster: Agriculture, Trade and Market Access

January 24, 2006

Achievement

Members of the UN Cluster submit that all their regular programme activities in support of Africa are planned and carried out in within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The NEPAD Secretariat in partnership with the members of the UN Cluster, individually and collectively, further developed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). CAADP was adopted by the Summit of the African Union in July 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique.

Members of the Cluster were active in the work of the Preparatory Committee of the Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on Agriculture and Water held in February 2004 in Sirte. The Summit provided additional strategic directions to realize the potential of agriculture as source of wealth creation.

Over the year 2005, members of the Cluster partnered with the AU/NEPAD Secretariat to develop the CAADP Implementation Process (CAADP-IP). Members actively participated to the 5 Regional Implementation Meetings (RIM) and the Accra Summit in May 2005. The RIM culminated in the preparation of the Post Accra Action Plan.

Members of the Cluster participated at the CAADP Retreat on Post Accra Action Plan to advance the implementation of the CAADP Agenda at regional and country levels. The Retreat was held on 24-25 October 2005 in Pretoria, South Africa.

The outcome of all these meetings is a Post Accra Action Plan but with no firm commitment of development partners to provide adequate financial resources to implement the Plan. It must be noted that so far the NEPAD Secretariat put more emphasis on furthering relationships with developed countries hoping that they will finance CAADP. Little attention was paid to generate public-private partnership at local, national and regional levels to allow the mobilization of African private sector resources in the productive sector of agriculture.

Assessment

The daunting challenge remains to convince the AU/NEPAD Secretariat to further promote public-private trade and investment partnership at local, national and regional levels to attract Regional Direct Investment (RDI) in transforming new business and investment opportunities in agriculture into wealth creation capacities. It remains to convince the Secretariat that Africa needs to develop from its own economic and fiscal bootstraps to own and lead Africa's development process rather than to rely on those of developed countries in the form of development aid.

The concerns with NEPAD at five years is to raise the level of awareness of those spearheading the NEPAD Process and to harness their determination to engage development partners to structurally transform global partnership for Africa's development as envisioned by the founding fathers of NEPAD and under the Monterrey Consensus. The restructured global partnership should further enhance the capacity of Africa to contribute to global wealth creation and to retain a fairer and larger share of global wealth generated from the exploitation of its markets, investment opportunities and human and natural resources.

Recommendation

It is suggested to define the CAADP Implementation Process as a process to generate new public-private trade and investment partnerships to develop new agricultural business and investment opportunities into wealth creation and retention capacities. A number of partnering tools and agreement at national, regional and international levels are being suggested to move forward the NEPAD Process. The tools are to help generate new partnerships to transform into wealth creation capacities new business and investment opportunities.

The application of the NEPAD Process to the CAADP Implementation Process should ensure that:

• Agricultural sector contributes optimally to global/regional wealth creation subject to an equitable distribution of regional wealth creation capacities among African and partnering nations and regional wealth among partnering African communities and retaining a fairer and larger share of global wealth generated from the exploitation of Africa's agricultural markets, investment opportunities and human and natural resources, and
• Each agricultural strategic commodity contributes to broad-based economic growth with food security, poverty reduction, equity and better environmental management based on a global partnership inspired by the shared vision of Africa as nations networked into a unified continent economy and market.

It is suggested to help develop a seamless relationship with the African Union that ECA takes the lead with the Addis Ababa based UN Organizations to hold on regular basis seminar on NEPAD. The participation could be expanded to the diplomatic and intellectual and community. The Seminar could be chaired as appropriate by AU and at the level of Commissioner.