This article was first published in the New Vision on January 10, 2025
Uganda will host the African Union Extraordinary Summit from January 9-11, 2025, to launch the next Ten-Year Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Strategy for 2026-2035, culminating in the Kampala Declaration. This follows the 2003 Maputo Declaration and 2014 Malabo Declaration respectively. The African Union highlights that CAADP initiatives have significantly boosted Africa’s economy through agricultural productivity, trade, and efforts to reduce hunger and poverty over the past two decades. According to the World Bank, the agricultural sector’s contribution to GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa grew by 2 percent between 2015 and 2020.
The CAADP is Africa’s primary policy framework for driving agricultural transformation, enhancing food security, reducing poverty, and promoting sustainable economic growth. In the past, African governments committed to dedicating a minimum of 10 percent of public expenditure to agriculture, aiming for annual agricultural growth rates of at least 6 percent per annum.
The 2014 Malabo Declaration emphasized agriculture-led development, efficient resource management, and export growth. The Declaration sought to increase agricultural investment financing, ending hunger by 2025, and halving poverty by 2025, among others. However, many of these aspirations remain unmet. For example, only four countries—Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, and Mali—have achieved the Malabo Declaration’s commitment for countries to allocate 10 percent of their budget to agriculture.
As ministers responsible for Agriculture convene in Kampala, they need to recognise that the agriculture sector now faces greater threats than it did a decade ago. Chief among these is the climate change crisis, which has cast doubt on the sector’s long-term sustainability. The frequency of extreme weather events, such as prolonged droughts, floods, and storms has risen significantly, posing serious challenges to agricultural resilience and productivity.
This gathering comes at a time when many countries are on the edge of a debt crisis, constrained by tight fiscal spaces and rising borrowing costs, making it challenging to allocate sufficient resources to agriculture. Additionally, the continent is still struggling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with uneven recovery and strained revenue streams.
However, there is still hope. The Kampala meeting is taking place against a backdrop that most countries increasingly recognise that advances in technology offer new opportunities for innovation and efficiency in the sector.
What way for the Kampala Declaration?
Resources are still key. The Kampala Declaration should emphasize the need for increased public expenditure in agriculture to meet CAADP goals. Most countries, including Uganda, were unable to meet the funding requirements which hampered the sector’s growth. The government allocated just about 5 percent of the total budget to agro-industrialization programme under the NDP during FY 2024/25. The 2021 National Labour Force Survey revealed agriculture employs over 36 percent of Uganda’s workforce, highlighting its crucial role in employment and wealth creation.
With 54 of 55 countries now signed up, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) significantly increases the potential market access for its members. The Kampala Declaration should leverage on the AfCFTA to promote intra- African trade which is a commitment under the Malabo Declaration.
Climate change continues to threaten food security and agricultural productivity across Africa. To mitigate its impacts, Ministers should prioritize investing in affordable, sustainable irrigation systems, because high setup costs primarily hinder the low adoption of irrigation in Africa.
Green finance is another critical tool for mitigating and adapting to climate change, yet access and utilization remains low in agriculture. Research by SEED in 2022 identified key barriers, including low financial literacy, limited awareness of available opportunities, low productivity, and insufficient collateral. The Kampala Declaration should urge Ministers to develop strategies to overcome these obstacles and enhance green finance access for African farmers.
Research on the African continent has shown that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to serve as a transformative force in agriculture in Africa. In a 2024 study, Kinyua Gikunda, a Kenya-based academic, identifies AI as a key solution for addressing the challenge of the ever-growing populations while ensuring sustainable agriculture. The Kampala Declaration should encourage Ministers to prioritise the adoption of technology in agriculture, including its use in pest management, market access platforms to promote domestic trade and exports, and irrigation technologies to reduce reliance on rain-fed agriculture.
Sheila Nakkazi is a research analyst at Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), Makerere University.
