Chairperson, organizing committee of the 3rd ECOWAS Agriculture Budget Summit, Ms Constance Okeke of the ActionAid Global Secretariat, has tasked the Non-State Actors (NSA) in the agriculture sector to leverage stakeholders in the parliament to ensure that sectoral public financing leads to the sustainability of Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) commitments, reports ITREALMS.
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| Ms Constance Okeke, ActionAid Intl |
CAADP is the Africa's policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, economic growth and prosperity for all.
This submission was made in her welcome remarks at the pre-summit consultative meeting held Tuesday, at the Hawthorn Suites, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
She also said that by leveraging parliamentary stakeholders, farmers, for instance would be in direct engagement with them as to their needs so as to improve public investment in agriculture.
For instance, she said, that by deliberately investing in and empowering women small holders would pave the way to end hunger and malnutrition.
Equally, she reminded the summit participants that in June 2014, the Heads of State and Government of the African Union came together in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and made some bold declaration on Accelerated African Agricultural Growth and Transformation (3AGT) for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods reaffirming earlier commitments made in Maputo, 2003 and its core principles and values.
She recalled that connecting with the broader Africa Agenda 2063 vision towards a broad-based development and economic transformation and growth, the AU/NPCA has been able to develop clear results and impact within the CAADP implementation framework highlighting the contribution of agricultural transformation to attaining Agenda 2063 goals and in this way also contribute to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This, she said, has underlined the importance of the collective and regional complementarities in achieving these targets and commitments.
Further, with the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) by ECOWAS Countries, she pointed out that there is an urgent need for massive and unprecedented investment in the agriculture sector for domestic consumption, rural infrastructural development, and export promotion for West Africa to take advantage of the opportunities the AfCFTA offers.
NaijaAgtoNet noted that in supporting and advocating for stakeholders’ involvement and ownership of implementing the Malabo Commitment in the ECOWAS Region, that the likes of ActionAid International in partnership with ECOWAS Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, Trust Africa, Oxfam, ActionAid Nigeria, Coalition of Non-State Actors on CAADP (CNC) and the Rural Women Farmers Forum organized the first ECOWAS Peoples Agriculture Budget Summit in December 2018 and second in 2019 and now third.
The summit could not hold in 2020 due to COVID-19 related restrictions and lock down.
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