The 10th CAADP Partnership Platform (PP) meeting in Durban (18-22 March) clearly pointed to weaknesses of the 10th CAADP PP in bringing out and reflecting on the political economy challenges that have impeded CAADP’s implementation in its first decade. There is a preoccupation with delivering results, which is not matched by a thorough understanding of what it would take to achieve those results on a sustainable basis.
The voices of the parliamentarians who participated in the 10th CAADP PP were loud and clear. They clearly heightened the deficiencies of the CAADP implementation framework from a political economy perspective. All the MPs who spoke pointed out that CAADP is not known by the general population across the continent apart from technocrats, and primarily those who reside in the Ministries of Agriculture.
They attributed the apparent lack of awareness of CAADP among the general population to the failure of the appropriate officials and agencies to engage across the continent. Even parliamentarians who belong to the Pan African Parliament were not fully aware of CAADP. It is therefore not surprising that very few countries have achieved the 10 percent target. The parliamentarians argued that this would have been easier if parliamentarians, who deal with national budgets, were fully aware of the CAADP agenda.
