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Monday, March 12, 2012

Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Tanzania


As a way of strengthening partnership and obtaining commitment from stakeholders, each member prepares and signs the CAADP Compact. The Compact is developed through broad-based stakeholder consultations and round-table processes that ensure that the CAADP agenda reflects a broad consensus on the country’s priorities to which efforts will be devoted by all concerned.
The process of developing the Compact has therefore involved a number of steps beginning with creating a public awareness on the CAADP agenda, followed by a process of stock taking to identify priority issues that are needed to be addressed as part of the CAADP agenda. These were then validated and agreed upon by all stakeholders before detailed strategic investment plans are developed to be implemented over the short, medium and long term.
Signing of the Compact indicates a consensus and commitment by all signatories, to participate in the development of the agricultural sector within the CAADP framework. The Compact is signed by key government ministers, representatives of Development Partners, the private sector, farmers, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and civil society organizations.
The Compact outlines the agreed policies, strategies, priority areas, investment plans, and resource requirements for the development of the agricultural sector in the country that will lead to economic growth and food security and overall reduction of poverty.
Advantages of CAADP for Tanzania
The vision 2025 of the country is to build a modern and commercial agricultural sector that is highly productive and profitable and utilizes natural resources in a sustainable manner. Therefore, the country’s efforts target ensuring food self-sufficiency, enhancing export earnings and reducing poverty levels. To achieve these goals, actions are being taken to increase primary production and productivity, enhance agro processing and value addition and to increase profitability for all involved in the sector.
The basic principles of ASDP and ASP are very much in line with the CAADP principles. Within the frame of the on-going preparation of ASDP II and ASP III, CAADP provides an opportunity for Tanzania to further strengthen its agricultural development efforts towards achieving greater impact on the country’s economy and food security. Specifically, signing the Compact has the following advantages:
1. First, the CAADP roundtable and compact signing allows for a broader range of stakeholders to engage and commit themselves to support the agricultural sector in more harmonized approach.
Currently, the ASDP/ASP is supported by a small group of Development Partners through the basket funding and a number of projects. The CAADP process provides an opportunity to convince other Development Partners to participate by obtaining consensus on priority areas for support, and by adopting a more flexible financing system. Furthermore, within the ASDP/ASP, the involvement of NGOs and the private commercial sector has been rather limited: the CAADP process is a chance for bringing on board the NGOs and the private sector to play a bigger role by clarifying their roles and agreeing on the policy and institutional mechanisms facilitating their involvement.
2. Secondly, the CAADP process will allow a more accurate identification of the priority needs of the country, based on lessons learned from the implementation of ASDP/ASP and a thorough and rigorous analytical work of the sector based on the current situation. Such analysis will also benefit from the lessons from other countries by allowing the participation of peers from other countries in the region.
3. Thirdly, the current phase of ASDP and ASP will come to an end in 2012/2013 and 2011 respectively.
Likewise, the current phase of the National Strategies for Growth and Reduction of Poverty for
Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar are ending, and the process of developing the next phase is ongoing.
Signing the Compact provides an opportunity for realignment of the country’s agricultural development strategies to the overall poverty reduction strategies, so that agricultural development may have a bigger impact on poverty reduction. The process of identifying the strategic investment priorities for the agricultural sector within the CAADP process will facilitate sector growth and sector contribution to poverty reduction and national development.
4. Fourthly, signing the Compact allows the country to participate more effectively in, and benefit more from regional initiatives such as regional policies that may promote more dynamic regional and sub-regional market linkages and other (sub) regional collaborations that will contribute to the development of the agricultural sector in the country.
5. Finally, the Compact will provide the blue print and mutual commitment for the long term agricultural development in Tanzania. The CAADP framework will allow Tanzania to bring all the agricultural development initiatives under one umbrella, thus bringing more coherence and predictability both on the part of farmers, the Government, Development Partners and other stakeholders as to the interventions to be implemented in the sector in the long run. This is also likely to attract more private investments into the sector.
Conclusion
CAADP is a continental framework for transforming the agriculture sector in African countries. It provides the opportunity to pull the majority of Africans out of poverty through agricultural development. For Tanzania it is an opportunity to achieve the goals of the National Strategies for Growth and Reduction of Poverty, and eventually for achieving the goals of the Development Visions 2025 and 2020 for Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar respectively. Signing the Compact would complement efforts towards transformed agriculture and sustained economic growth through Kilimo Kwanza and ASDP; Agricultural Transformation Initiative (ATI) and ASP for Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar respectively.

Source: www.agriculture.go.tz/CAADP/Brochure


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