Mobilisation of financial resources to provide investment support for countries involved in NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is moving ahead according to the quarterly CAADP report.

OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) The NEPAD Secretariat, with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has secured OFID agreement to fund bankable investment project profiles or other CAADP related priority projects in six countries.

Invitations were sent to Namibia, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia, Rwanda, Egypt and Burkina Faso to participate in the OFID fund. Since this is a loan, the countries were requested to submit a letter from their Ministries of Finance.

Zambia, Mozambique, and Rwanda have endorsed OFID funding and Swaziland and Egypt have expressed interest and are in the process of obtaining letters from their Ministries of Finance.

The countries that have endorsed OFID funding will be given OFID ($10,000) and FAO ($5,000) grants to assist in preparing feasibility studies.

It is expected that all feasibility studies will be completed by 30 December 2007, after which OFID loan processing procedures will begin.

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Many member countries of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) face high levels of food insecurity. To address this problem, the NEPAD Secretariat has reached agreement with IFAD to fund full chain-value production of cassava and NERICA rice in countries where there is reasonable stability.

NEPAD is also exploring the possibility of targeted emergency interventions in ECCAS member countries still experiencing instability.

Food and Agriculture Organisation The NEPAD Secretariat and the FAO have signed a technical assistance project worth US$428,000.

The project is intended to fill a critical capacity gap in the NEPAD Agriculture Unit in implementing African Union decisions by preparing technical documents, organising country- level resource mobilisation meetings, and conducting advocacy work to mobilise commitments internationally and continentally in support of the CAADP agenda.

Allocation of national budgets to agriculture development The CAADP quarterly report also notes progress in the allocation of 10% public expenditure to agriculture development in line with the 2003 AU Summit Maputo Declaration.

The African Union Commission (AUC) and the NEPAD Secretariat, with support from the World Bank and FAO, are monitoring compliance with this landmark decision.

There are decreasing numbers of countries with less than 5% allocation and increasing numbers of countries with 5% to 10% and more than 10%, but the rates of change remain low.

Based on the available data, most countries will not attain 10% national expenditure allocation to agriculture development by 2008.

The distribution of country compliance is as follows :

10% or more : Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Malawi, Niger, and ;

5% to less than 10% : Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, The Gambia, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, and ;

Less than 5% : Algeria, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Gabon, Liberia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The AUC and the NEPAD Secretariat are taking measures to increase the number of countries responding to the allocation questionnaire and to improve the quality of data. Agriculture development is the responsibility of African Governments and donors can only supplement local investments.

The deadline for compliance with the 2003 AU Maputo decision is 2008 and the NEPAD Secretariat will be following up with national governments that have not submitted the required data. NEPAD will also continue with its advocacy role in calling on national governments to comply with the Maputo decision. Source : NEPAD, npvember 23, 2007