Can Africa feed herself…?

African Ministers of Finance, Economic Planning and Development have recently resolved to give pride of place to the high potential of the agricultural sector to create jobs, by granting subsidies to small scale farmers through the provision of certain inputs and by adopting measures to stabilize markets for farmers who produce surpluses.

 

The "Resolution 11" was adopted at the conclusion of the Annual Session of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development held last week in Lilongwe, Malawi, under the auspices of the African Union (AU) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

 

The resolution reaffirms the commitment of African Ministers to boosting investment in agriculture and allocating a substantial share of national budgets to this vital sector, as provided for in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) established at the 2003 AU Summit in Maputo.

Bearing the title "Towards Realizing a Food Secure Africa within Five Years", Resolution 11 calls for a set of concrete measures such as speeding up the implementation of the African mechanism for financing the development of fertilizers.

 

With a view to enhancing the competitiveness of African farmers, Resolution 11 also stipulates that priority should be given to local producers rather than international charity organization when it comes to provisioning from food aid suppliers. "These African farmer support measures fall within the broader context of articulating appropriate strategies to promote job creation within a framework where the spectacular growth rates achieved in the past decade have impacted only marginally on reducing joblessness in most African countries," the ministerial conference had noted.

 

The conference was one of the highlights of the many initiatives that African leadership is taking in ensuring not only that its meets its commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by 2015, but also in taking the lead in Africa’s development initiatives.