Will Nigeria Revisit The Maputo Declaration?

Agriculture Development Programme

While Nigeria is signatory to the Maputo declaration signed at the second ordinary assembly of African Union on July 2003, past governments have failed to comply with the recommendations of the declaration which states  that African Nations will give 10 per cent of their annual budgets to agriculture. will the present government will revisit the declaration.

It has been 10 years since African heads of state and government pledged to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets to the agricultural sector as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The commitment, also known as the Maputo Declaration Target, rallied African governments to increase spending in the sector to stimulate agricultural growth, reduce poverty, and build food and nutrition security.

Since then, a total of 13 countries have met or surpassed the 10 percent target in one or more years since 2003,these are Burundi, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately Nigeria, the largest African country with a population of over 160 million, of which 70 per cent are reported to be farmers continue to lag behind, despite records showing that the nations agriculture  sector contributes 40 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the economy.

Reports show that Nigeria has over 80 million farmers, 80% of whom are small scale farmers located in rural areas and without access to the basic facilities and subsidised inputs provided by government.

At the call for the Maputo declaration in 2003, Development experts across the globe were of the opinions that the recommendation had the potential to turn the fortunes of the continent around since majority of the continent derives its livelihood from agriculture, unfortunately while the Nigerian agricultural sector has been acclaimed to be undergoing its greatest  transformation ,the sector has continued to witness dwindling support from the government to its agricultural sector.

Meanwhile it is to be recalled that that the 2015 agricultural budget showed that the Nigerian government’s budgetary allocations to the sector continues to drop from 1.7 percent in 2013 to 1.44 percent in 2014 and to 0.9 in 2015. These very low allocations have consistently remained meagre and not meeting the 10 percent Maputo Declaration Commitment as reiterated in Malabo on Agriculture and Food Security.”

For Program coordinator, Civil Society Coalition for Poverty Eradication, Peter Egwudah , “Nigeria does not have a defined agricultural agenda or framework” little wonder  that the country is not able to leverage on its inherent potentials to turn around the fortunes in the sector”

Speaking on the need to adopt the Maputo declaration, he said “without mincing words agriculture sustains the economy of most countries in the globe, from the production of food and employment, agriculture provides the raw materials for manufacturers in developed countries, adding that industrialization of a nation cannot be attained without the development of agriculture across the value chain.

The Food and Agriculture Advisor of ActionAid Azubuike Nwokoye while presenting the organisation’s findings on the 2015 Budget analysis lamented that despite government’s increased attention on agriculture in recent years by introducing a range of policies to increase productivity, Nigeria’s budgetary allocations and actual spending on agriculture are woefully inadequate to reduce poverty, ‎ especially on the key services needed by smallholder farmers like women and youths, and that not only was the figures for the states low varying from 2.0-5.9 per cent, but it is also extremely erratic.

As the need to heed to the call for the implementation of the Maputo declaration becomes more urgent with the collapse in the price of crude oil in the International market, Nigeria, is also awaiting its transition in the agricultural sector .

By-Ruth Tene Natsa,