Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Kagame attacks other govts on low funding to agriculture

By RNA News

Kigali: Faced with increasing hunger, all African governments agreed in 2003 to each put 10% of their budgets into agriculture. But six years later, only seven have complied – to which President Kagame and advocacy groups heavily criticized Monday, RNA reports.
“If we are to be honest, we must acknowledge that neither Africa nor our partners have met the goals we set for ourselves,” he told a major conference reviewing the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) program.

“The number of African countries that have implemented the agreed key broad and specific requirements of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program, remains low,” he said.

It is the same message that advocacy group ActionAid raised as the conference got underway. The agency says Africa can farm its way out of poverty and hunger - if donors and governments finally keep their promises to invest more in the women farmers who grow most of its food.

Despite Rwanda government figures indicating that the country had recorded a 30 percent food production over the past year, the ActionAid said on World Hunger Day October 16 that up to 40% of the population was food insecure. But officials dismissed the figure saying only Nyaruguru district having any food problems.

For Rwanda which is among the seven which have implemented the CADAP plan, Mr. Kagame told delegates agriculture is becoming a “powerful engine” for the country’s growth “making a turn-around after years of poor performance”. The sector expanded by 16% last year, he noted.

President Kagame attributed this change to increased public investments and extended services targeted into agriculture.

On Sunday, the President also said on a syndicated radio interview that Rwanda has never at any point in history been better-of in food production.

However, ActionAid views the situation differently. The agency says despite meeting its own financial commitments under CAADP and raising agricultural productivity to 15 percent of GDP, Rwanda is still short by $300 million of the $800 million needed to underwrite its 2020 agricultural investment plan.

As part of CAADP, rich countries pledged half of the US $251 billion total investment needed to revitalise farming on the continent would come through aid or private investment, amounting to US $8.9 billion a year.

Although aid to African agriculture doubled from US $1.05 billion in 2002 to US $2.15 billion in 2007, this is still four times less than is needed, according to ActionAid estimates.

“The 1994 genocide left about 50% of children malnourished but in the past five years, Rwanda has made huge strides to achieving food security by supporting smallholders," said Theresa Karugwiza, country director for ActionAid Rwanda.

"However, unless donors close the US $300 million financing gap, they may not be able to stay the course," said Anne Jellema, ActionAid's international policy director, calling on the donors to make their commitments clear before the end of the conference.

ActionAid also criticised governments for failing to keep their promises to farmers.

"There are almost as many states that have reduced their spending on agriculture as have increased it," said Bibiane Mbaye, ActionAid's Policy Coordinator.

"But this cannot be divorced from the equally shameful decline in donor aid to agriculture in earlier years. Donors need to prove that they will keep their side of the bargain instead of leaving poor countries stranded without the additional financing needed to deliver on promises made to farmers."

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 10:51 PM