Sharing Data Key to Accurate Reporting on Malabo Commitments

By Natasha Mhango

The commitments of the 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agriculture Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods will expire in 2025, which is next year. The Malabo Commitments, as they are usually referred to, were the product of a 2014 African Union Heads of State meeting in which member states committed to fostering agriculture-led development to reduce poverty and end hunger in Africa by 2025.

This targeted approach saw various African countries also commit to allocating 10% of their public expenditures to financing agriculture, boosting intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services, and ensuring a biennial review process to track and monitor the progress being made.

While a significant number of signatories to the Commitments are not on track to achieve some of the set targets, they have made significant progress in the right direction.

During a recently held training workshop on Knowledge Management and Monitoring /Reporting of Malabo Commitments in Chisamba, Zambia, brief analyses of Biennial Review Reports(BRRs) from various countries indicated that the political will to transform the agriculture sector remained aggressive, as evidenced by the existence of working policies and strategies designed to promote agriculture-led development.

The training workshop that the Centre facilitated for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa(CCARDESA) and the E.U.-funded CAADP-XP4 brought together consultants, knowledge management experts, the media, the youth, and some government officials from Zambia’s ministries of Agriculture and Fisheries and Livestock to analyse the status of the Malabo Commitments in the SADC Region.

Issues surrounding harnessing data and information and connecting the information with people who need it were of particular importance.

Presentations from the event based on some countries’ BRRs indicated that most countries had established appropriate policies and strategies aimed at reducing poverty and ending hunger, which was indicative of progress in the desired direction. However, some concerns were raised about the accuracy of the data used to measure this progress.

There was an assertion that a significant amount of progress being under-reported was brought to fora as the consensus recognized the unavailability of data and/or inaccessibility to data during the compilation of the BRRs.

Dr. Martin Muchero - an international consultant with expertise in rural development and agriculture - was one of the participants at the training workshop that was held and agreed with this assertion to a valid extent.

He highlighted the need to network and share information through consistent reporting, a characteristic evident in countries like Rwanda and Egypt that were reportedly on track to meet the Malabo Commitments.

“Other countries that have done well are those countries that have put together good, sound agriculture information management systems,” Dr Muchero said

He added that reporting on investment in agriculture, for instance, needed to be broader than simply reporting on increases in farm production.

"Even constructing a road in the rural area that facilitates the farmer's access to the market is an investment in agriculture…So let’s not think about the 10% investment [commitment to agriculture financing] as just what goes into the Ministry of Agriculture; let’s think about the small contributions that are being made at the local community level. That all counts, too,” Dr Muchero said.

Mr. Benjamin Abugri – the Knowledge Management and Outreach Officer for the Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa(FARA), echoed the need for key stakeholders to network in reporting their countries’ progress towards the Malabo Commitments.

“Knowledge management is not only about collecting and sharing information but also about connecting people to the information,” Mr. Abugri highlighted.

As the adage goes, if it’s not written down, then it didn’t happen.

The author is a National Agriculture Information Services (NAIS) Principal Agricultural Information Officer.