17 Aug 2020

Botswana as a member of the African Union-AU is to be party to Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation or Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods. 

This was said by Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security Dr Edwin Dikoloti in response to a question in Parliament . 

He noted that while the Maputo-CAADP era was still about setting up the architecture of the process and its milestones (compact, NAIP, business meeting), the Malabo CAADP era now built on that foundation and ensured that it delivered against Malabo targets as well as against the other national development targets. 

Dr Dikoloti said to ensure that the emphasis on delivery did not remain an empty promise, heads of states had agreed to a biennial review at which progress of each individual country was measured in alternating years and against all that the Malabo Declaration was committed to achieve. 

He added that his ministry as a host of this process has held multi-sectoral workshops for both the first and second biennial reviews, saying it was one of the 47 of the 55 AU member states that had provided information on their status for the first report. 

Furthermore,he said a total of 43 indicators from different sectors that had an impact on Agricultural development such as health, water, rural development, trade, poverty eradication among others were tracked along the seven thematic areas of the Malabo Declaration. 

He said selected indicators were then summarised in an innovative tool called the Africa Agricultural Transformation Scorecard-AATS in order to assess each country’s performance. 

The minister explained that the AATS highlighted each country’s five best and worst indicators and provided specific policy recommendations based on the country’s performance.

Jwaneng-Mabutsane MP, Mr Mephato Reatile, had asked the minister when government would sign the Malabo Declaration recognising the importance of multi sectorial engagement and co-ownership of this agricultural transformation agenda within the public sector. Ends