Rwandan minister of Agriculture and Animal resources, Gerardine Mukeshimana, on Tuesday welcomed this year Rwanda’s performance in implementing the 2014 Malabo Declaration of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and said that this is a result of the country’s efforts aiming at moving the agriculture sector from subsistence to a market-led sector contributing to exports and jobs creation.
The senior Rwandan Government official was reacting to the latest report by the African Union Commission (AUC), which was presented at the AU General Assembly on February 10, 2020, has indicated that Rwanda’s performance improved from 6.1 in 2017 to 7.2 in 2019 against the benchmark of 6.6 out of 10 marks.
It said that the benchmark is the minimum score for a country to be qualified as being on track in implementing the CAADP Malabo Declaration.
The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is the agricultural programme of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, an African Union (AU) programme which was established in 2003
Its major focus aims at improving food security, nutrition, and increasing incomes in Africa’s largely farming-based economies to achieve this by raising agricultural productivity and increasing public investment in agriculture.
During the first biennial review of the CAADP programme in 2017, Rwanda was also the best overall performing country. The African Union Member States’ performance is presented in a form of a “Country Scorecard in implementing the Malabo Commitments” by 2025 for improved livelihoods and shared prosperity for African citizens.
A new implementation cycle for the CAADP implementation process in Rwanda has now been initiated to guide increased and impactful public and private investments in agriculture during the period 2018-2024.
Programme for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA 4) is designed to achieve four strategic impact areas that are in accordance with the CAADP framework; namely: (a) increased wealth contribution, (b) increased economic opportunity, (c) improved food security, and (d) increased resilience.
It aims to set out the estimated required resources of $3 bn for the agricultural sector in the next six years.
CU/abj/APA