African ministers to review agricultural development

Ministers will meet at the Conference of African Ministers of Agriculture (CAMA), under the theme, 'Delivering on Africa's agriculture development agenda', from 26-29 October 2010 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The conference is organised by the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture (REA) of the African Union Commission (AUC), together with the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA), in collaboration with the Government of Malawi.

25 Oct 2010

Implementing the African Food Basket Initiative

The meeting is a follow-up to efforts to fast-track the implementation of the African Food Basket Initiative, hosting African ministers of agriculture to review progress on the implementation of continental agricultural development; and consider and adopt an action-oriented strategy to move forward the vision of a food secure Africa within five years.

The conference also aims to deliberate and agree on how the strategy can be put into action considering ongoing initiatives and activities, mainly on the Comprehensive African Agricultural Programme (CAADP) at regional and country level and to recommend to African political leaders how the initiative can be put to action.

Objectives of the CAMA conference:

To review and adopt a strategy to operationalise the vision of a food secure Africa through, among others, identification of quick win actions;
To agree on areas of immediate (short term) follow up, at country, sub-regional or regional level, of quick win actions that demonstrate linkages with on-going African wide initiatives and decisions specially the CAADP framework and related national and regional Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans;
To propose key approaches and actions for high level political engagement of AU chair Prof. Bingu Wa Mutharika with fellow heads of states and government on how to consolidate those quick wins;
To examine and adopt policy frameworks including the policy framework for Pastoralism in Africa, and strategies to improve rural livelihoods in semi-arid zones of Africa.

The CAMA is expected to be attended by ministers of agriculture and experts from the AU member states, AU Commission, NEPAD, the World Bank, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), development partner organisations, diplomatic corps, farmers, and civil societies.