ADDIS ABABA
African agriculture experts and representatives of pertinent regional and international organizations met in Addis Ababa on Wednesday to evaluate the implementation to date of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADEP).
Adopted in Maputo, Mozambique in 2003, CAADEP aims to allocate at least 10 percent of member-states' gross domestic product to agricultural development.
Addressing the meeting, African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture Tumusiime Rhoda Peace said very few countries in Africa had yet committed 10 percent of their respective budgets to agriculture.
She said that Wednesday's meeting was expected to formulate an implementation framework for the 2015-2025 period.
For his part, Ethiopia's State Minister for Agriculture Tekaligne Mamo said: "Adequate and sustainable agricultural and rural development in Africa requires strategic interventions in agriculture, natural resources and thesocial sector in order to be able to achieve economic gains in dynamic and rewarding activities."
Dubbed Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS), Wednesday's platform is an Africa-wide network established to provide readily available analysis, data and high-qualitytools to promote evidence-based decision making.
"This highlights the tremendous challenge facing African countries and the need to deepen the reforms and scale up the efforts that have accelerated exports over the past ten years," the International Food Policy Research Institute said in a press release issued for the event.
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