African Union : to launch the Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard; towards achieving agricultural transformation

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 25 January 2018: The African Union will, during the Assembly of the AU Heads of State and Government, launch the Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard (AATS) and present the Inaugural Biennial Report on the Implementation of the June 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared prosperity and improved Livelihoods.

The AATS, the first of its kind in Africa, captures the continent's agricultural progress based on a pan-African data collection exercise led by the African Union Commission's Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture (DREA), NEPAD Agency, Regional Economic Communities in collaboration with partners, which has gathered data on up to 43 indicators.

The AATS tracks progress in commitments made by AU Heads of State and Government through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the Malabo Declaration to increase prosperity and improved livelihoods for transforming agriculture.

The AATS captures 23 performance categories and 43 indicators for each of the 55 AU Member States. The indicators chosen to track the performance categories were defined on the basis of the strategic objectives derived from the Malabo Declaration.

In the Malabo Declaration, AU Member States committed to report on a biennial basis, the progress in achieving the 7 commitments of the Declaration with the first report to be presented at the 30th AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government. Preceding this, the 'Inaugural Biennial Report on the Implementation of the June 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared prosperity and improved Livelihoods,' was endorsed by Ministers of Agriculture during the 2nd Specialized Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment that was held in October 2017, in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia).

'No other agriculture evaluation tool in Africa's history has ever brought together the AU, all the continent's regional trade organisations, the private sector, the international development community and all African governments to build Africa's agriculture and agribusiness markets,' said DREA's Director Dr. Godfrey Bahiigwa. 'The aim is that the AATS will encourage performance across AU Member States, and also provide a tool that can be used by every actor engaged in agriculture, across governments, the private sector, and non-state actors.'

In 2017, the AUC conducted and facilitated 6 training sessions respectively in West (in French and English), East, Central, Southern and North Africa regions, with 156 national experts trained including CAADP Focal Persons, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialists and Statisticians from Ministries of Agriculture and other line ministries.

Almost all AU Member States participated in the training and familiarized themselves with the Malabo Declaration, targets and indicators, and the biennial review reporting format, which has further embedded the culture of mutual accountability in Africa.

The work that has gone into delivering Africa's most comprehensive agricultural data set has been enormous, but with this new tool set, the AUC has delivered on the Heads of State's mandate to create tools which, when implemented, will take Africa's economic growth to a next level.

In addition, five top performing countries in the implementation of the Malabo Declaration commitments will be awarded at the Summit.

The 30th AU Heads of State and Government Summit is scheduled to take place from 28-29 January 2018 under the theme, 'Winning the Fight against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa's Transformation.'

For more information, please contact:
Ms. Carol Jilombo
CAADP Communications
[e-mail]