FG domesticates Malabo declaration

Delegates of the National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) formulation pose for a group photo

The Federal Government has, in line with the ‘Green Alternative’ policy, started the domestication of ‘Malabo Declaration’ in the agricultural sector.

This was made known by  the Deputy Director, Policy Implementation Department Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,  Sylvester Baye, at a 3-day meeting organized by the African Union, (AU) and New Partnership for Africa Development, (NEPAD) on ‘Expert Panel to Draft New Plan for Achieving Economic Diversity through Major Investments in Agriculture’ in Abuja.

Baye told Food Farm News during an interview that the key purpose of the meeting was on review of the plan for making crop, livestock and fisheries the centrepiece of Nigeria’s economic development agenda. 

He added that the effort of domesticating the Malabo declaration would enhance Nigeria’s National Agriculture Investment Plan, NAIP, to align with commitments contained in the AU’s 2014 ‘Malabo Declaration’, which seeks to halve poverty rates by 2025 through agriculture-led economic growth. The deputy director said Nigerian government has been committed to the process of domesticating the ‘Malabo Declaration, which hinged on transparency in policy formulation and implementation in line with the three cardinal principles of transparency, accountability and peer reviewing of Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, CAADP, and National Agriculture Investment Plan, NAIP.

He stressed that In the African region as far as Agriculture is concerned Nigeria has recorded quiet a lot of progress and that the ‘Malabo Declaration’ is just being domesticated and there is no country that could say they have been able to do it. “This is because Malabo Commitment is coming up through the second generation of the NAIP every country has started the process and also Nigeria has started it. Every country has its own home grown policy and there are standards of reporting of whatever you are doing. You have to be seen following the principles of CAADP and NAIP, which include transparency, accountability and peer reviewing. Nigeria’s focus now is transparency, stating that there are a lot of work going on with the issue of transparency, which is one cardinal principle of CAADP and NAIP. If things are done transparently, there will be rapid development of commercial agriculture. So far we cannot say this is the extent of achievement of Malabo Declaration but Malabo Declaration is in progress” he explained.

The Program Officer, AGRA Nigeria Dr. Kehinde Makinde, said that the meeting is about the Nigerian Agriculture Investment Plan,  which essentially reemphasized the commitment that were made in 2006, which is basically getting Africa back to food sufficiency, “the idea is to make sure that Africa comes out of food poverty, and is able to ensure food for its citizenry, so this meeting called Malabo domestication with frame work developed by CAADP and African countries emulating it to know what is the implications of that  and what is the investment planning process to make it happen in Nigeria. The meeting is looking to understand better the green alternative program of the federal government of Nigeria, to understand what are the investment components that are there and to see how these can work with the continental agenda, which is the CAADP framework and then see how we can get a road map towards the implementation of the green alternative agenda of the federal government of Nigeria”,. 

He added that although Nigeria was doing well sustaining the Malabo declarations she still had some challenges as regards to food sufficiency, “particularly in terms of staples like rice and wheat but Nigeria is also self-sufficient in other staples, like yam, Nigeria is the largest producers of cowpea in the world. We are to gather top five commodities that the Nigeria community consume, on this process, the wheat and the rice where they have challenges, but when you talk about yam, cassava and few other crops will be a good prospect and now that Nigeria is bringing all its tools together to ensure that we increase rice production and also reduce importation of country”, and that by the time the process is concluded, it is expected that government will have a strategy for ensuring food security.

The Senior Advisor and CAADP Team Leader, African Union Commission, Ernest Ruzindaza, said the AU and NEPAD were out to see how African countries could put in more resources into agriculture and also create wealth and employment for their youth and women. 

He said many countries in 2003 financed their agricultural sector by two per cent budgetary allocation but after 10 years of CAADP there was significant improvement as some countries were putting more than 10 per cent of their budget into the sector, while the average was seven per cent, which were a big achievement and a positive trend. “We are also achieving growth and growth target in CAADP was six per cent per year, and in average we did not reach the six per cent, and there was a positive trend which was four per cent. “

But still the ‘Malabo Commitment’ is aiming at six per cent per year when it comes to agriculture growth. That growth will translate into good livelihood of the people and job creation for our youth and women. 

The consultative interface meeting between the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), National Planning & Budget, Finance Ministry and international partners organized by Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is expected to advance the agricultural sector towards achieving the African Heads of states’ resolution targeted to reducing hunger drastically by 2025, using the CAADP-Malabo declaration.

This meeting was expected to enhance the agricultural policy to conform to best global practice as Nigeria’s New Green Alternation Policy would be repositioned to achieve the foundation for the New National Agricultural investment Plan (NAIP) with other technical partners following the guidelines of Malabo declaration.