Date Issued: December 20, 2018 –
A COMMUNIQUE ISSUED BY CAADP NON-STATE ACTORS/CSOs ON GHANA’S PERFORMANCE IN THE INAUGURAL BIENNIAL REVIEW PROCESS AND REPORT, 2018
ANGE HILL HOTEL IN ACCRA ON 3RD OCTOBER, 2018
Preamble
We, the Non-State-Actors (NSAs) namely the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), Chamber of Agribusiness-Ghana (CAG), SEND GHANA, Friends of the Nation, Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), ACTIONAID Ghana, National Association of Seed Traders (NASTAG), Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition (GTLC), Northern Development Society (NORDESO), African Youth Network for Agricultural Transformation (ANYAT), GRAMEEN Ghana, Shea Network Ghana (SNG), Development Institute (DI), Coalition of Civil Society on Land (CICOL), SDG Goal 2 Platform, SNV Ghana, United Purpose, Women in Agribusiness Network Ghana (WIANG) and Farmers held a stakeholder workshop on Ghana’s progress in achieving the objectives of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and government’s Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme, with the aim of contributing to improve Ghana’s performance on the Biennial Review process.
Background
In 2003, the Heads of States and Governments of the African Union (AU) endorsed the ‘Maputo Declaration’ and also adopted the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) framework in Maputo, Mozambique. One of the cardinal components of the Declaration is for African countries to increase agriculture spending to at least 10 per cent of annual budgets by 2008. Such increment is expected to help African countries reach a higher path of economic growth through agriculture-led development, which eliminates hunger, reduces poverty, food and nutrition insecurity and facilitates expansion of exports.
After a decade of implementation, the AU member states demanded for more clarity regarding CAADP targets, and assessment of technical efficacies and political feasibilities for success in agricultural transformation. In June 2014, the AU reaffirmed its commitment by adopting Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea called the “Malabo Declaration”. The Malabo Declaration sets the Africa 2025 Vision for Agriculture as a vehicle to implement and achieve the First Ten Year Implementation Plan of Africa’s Agenda 2063. Among other commitments in Malabo, the leaders recommitted to Mutual Accountability to Results and Actions by conducting a biennial Agricultural Review Process that involves tracking, monitoring and reporting on implementation of progress in achieving the provisions of the Malabo Declaration.
In 2017, the Africa Union Commission and other regional blocs developed a monitoring mechanism to track countries’ performance towards achieving the Malabo Declaration. This was followed by the “Inaugural Biennial Report on the Implementation of the Malabo Declaration” in Gabon in April 2018 where findings of progress towards achieving the Malabo Declaration were presented. Against the 2017 Benchmark of 3.94 which was set as a minimum score for a country to be on track of achieving the implementation of the Malabo Declaration, 20 countries including Ghana’s neighbours Burkina Faso, Togo and Mali were said to be on track to achieving the Malabo Declaration. However, Ghana with all the rich agricultural and natural resources scored 3.91. The Ghana specific areas of poor performance include: intra-Africa trade of agricultural commodities and services, agricultural value added per agricultural worker and sustainable land management practices.
As part of its contribution to improve Ghana’s performances, the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana in partnership with TrustAfrica organized a stakeholder workshop to brainstorm on how to support the government to improve its performance on the Implementation of the Malabo Declaration in Accra on 3rd October 2018. The one-day stakeholder workshop also sought to understand the how the government agricultural flagship programme “Planting for Food and Jobs” was aligned with the CAADP commitments. The participants, among others made the following observations and recommendations for consideration by government and all duty bearers.
ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The NSAs first and foremost commend government for accepting the results of the Biennial Review Report (BRR) in good faith and putting measures in place to ensure good performances in the next BR to be presented in 2020. Specifically, we are pleased with the development of the Country Action plan to implement the 2017 BRR recommendations and hope that government will demonstrate adequate commitment in the implementation processes.
2. The forum identified lack of data resulting from poor data collection and limited investment in research and monitoring as a contributing factor to Ghana’s performance in the 2017 scoring. The NSA/CSOs therefore recommend increase investment in data collection and strengthening of the data collection unit, thus Statistics, Research and Information Directorate (SRID) of Ministry of Food and Agriculture to effectively deliver on their mandate. The NSAs also appeal to government to adequately resource research institutions to help them produce reliable and credible data to serve both supplementary and complementary efforts to government’s data collection frameworks.
3. The NSA/CSOs acknowledge Government as being responsible for provision of national level data, however, NSA/CSOs should be consulted on data needs to enable them contribute to this objective. The state should therefore provide a strategic data collection plan that includes NSAs/CSOs. Given the cumbersome and detailed data requirement by Africa Union Commission as part of the Biennial Report process, NSA/CSOs call for further training on the reporting process and data requirements so they make more meaningful contributions to the process.
4. Information gap between MoFA and NSA/CSOs was also identified as a major issue by stakeholders. The NSA were not involved in data collection and reporting process for the 2017 Biennial Review Process for the African Union Commission. NSA/CSOs therefore call on MoFA to prioritize a process to identify and profile all agricultural related NSA/CSOs at the subnational level to know where they can assist in addressing specific data needs.
5. As Non-State Actors, we have also resolved to be proactive in the mutual accountability processes with government. However, we observed a lack of active NSA/CSO representation on the CAADP team. This led to poor feedback, poor accountability and poor participation of NSA/CSOs on CAADP related issues. We recommend MoFA initiates a process to identify and select active NSA/CSOs representatives to serve on the CAADP team. These representatives should be given terms of references including accountability mechanisms with agreed tenure of office.
6. At the continental level, we call on the Technical Teams of the African Union (AU) supporting the Biennial Review Process, to review the reporting indicators for member countries or allow member countries to review the indicators to reflect their countries agricultural priority areas. This is in view of the complaints by member States, including Ghana, on the cumbersomeness and unrealistic data requirements for the report. We hope that member states and the AU team will agree on fewer common areas and indicators for reporting to ensure common understanding and effective reporting.
7. We also call on the African Union Commission to ensure active NSA/CSO representation and participation during the Biennial Review processes. This could be through capacity building of NSA/CSO on the reporting processes, engagement of NSAs/CSOs on scores presented by the government for validation and providing slots for NSAs/CSOs to participate in the Biennial review conference. This will ensure that NSAs/CSOs from member countries are part of the monitoring and validation of data and information presented by respective member states to guarantee accuracy and credibility of information.
8. Also, NSAs/CSOs urge the AU to help improve intra-continental trade by eradicating trade barriers. All governments should prioritize investment in agriculture. We believe this will create a ready market for farmers in the region and make the continent food sufficient.
9. On the Planting for Food and Jobs, our assessment and review of the program in achieving the CAADP goals and objectives indicates that specific interventions need to be considered. We therefore call on government to
a. Make specific allocations for women, youth and other vulnerable groups
b. Introduce sustainable land management practices
c. Improve stakeholders’ participation in the programme through better developed and operationalized consultations
d. Strengthen extension and marketing services for farmers
Signed
Mr. Abdul Rahman Mohammed
The National President
Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana
Dated 3rd October, 2018
Issued for and on behalf of NSAs listed above
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