Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)-Stakeholders meet donors at CAADP conference |20 March 2008
It is African-led and represents a partnership to assist African countries in tackling the root causes of hunger and poverty, as well as building wealth.
The CAADP meeting was opened yesterday by the Seychelles Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Transport, Joel Morgan, who said that the ongoing partnership platform meeting should be seen as a strategic and coordinated response to address the issues confronting agriculture in Africa.
“Africa faces a myriad of challenges that require concerted efforts to tackle them and our presence here today is proof of our realization of these challenges and a demonstration of our resolve to address them,” the minister said.
He said that the meeting has been convened to review progress made on the implementation of under various CAADP “pillars,” to identify and assess the major challenges to implementation and to identify actions and measures that can help enhance coordination for better implementation.
“Secondly, we should chart the way forward through our integral agenda that takes into account the priority areas of intervention, the mechanisms for effective coordination the process for mutual accountability and the follow up arrangements to ensure that the partnership platform adds value to the CAADP process,” he said.
Speaking in an interview, World Bank representative, David Nielson, told the local media that a group of donors are working together to set up a trust fund to support various programmes at continent, national and regional levels.
He said that the reason for the donors being at the meeting is to work together to establish goals and mechanisms of operation of the trust fund.
He said that the donors who are willing to contribute to the fund include the United States Aid Agency, and that the World Bank expects some of the other donors like the European Union to contribute.