Second Biennial Review Report of the African Union Commission on the Implementation of the Malabo Declaration

Following the Inaugural Biennial Review Report and in response to a call made by the Heads of State and government for a monitoring report to be produced every two years, starting from 2017, the African Union recently published the Second Biennial Review Report on the progress in the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) through the Malabo Declaration on ‘‘Accelerated Africa Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods’’.

The Malabo Declaration was adopted by the AU Assembly Heads of State and Government in June 2014 and provides the direction for Africa’s agricultural transformation for the period 2015-2025, within the CAADP, as a vehicle to contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the First Ten Year Implementation Plan of Africa’s Agenda 2063.

This report is a collaborative effort of the AU Member States, Regional Economic Communities and several technical organizations and individuals, under the leadership of the African Union Commission and the African Union Development Agency (NEPAD). Its aim is to present individual Member States and their collective performances in order to trigger continental, regional and national level action programmes to collectively drive agriculture transformation in Africa.

This second Biennial Review builds on the efforts of the first round and tracks the country performance on each of the 47 indicators that shows the performance of the agricultural sector in the continent (four more indicators than in the inaugural report, covering food insecurity and food safety).

In this report, the seven Malabo Commitments are translated into seven thematic areas of performance:

1. Re-committing to the principles and values of the CAADP process
2. Enhancing investment finance in agriculture
3. Ending hunger in Africa by 2025
4. Reducing poverty by half, by 2025 through inclusive agricultural growth and transformation
5. Boosting intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services
6. Enhancing resilience of livelihoods and production systems to climate variability and other related risks
7. Strengthening mutual accountability to actions and results.

Considerable efforts have gone into improving the data quality, with more countries reporting in the second round, and there is an overall positive trend in the performance of countries, even though only four countries achieved the required milestones to be on track.

The report shows that there is still a lot to be done in the march towards agricultural transformation in Africa, and the need of collectively sustaining the momentum, undertaking deeper and bolder initiatives to accelerate the progress rate, and ensuring that agriculture contributes to the goals and targets set by the Heads of State and Government by 2025.