Non State Actors** Uniting to Influence CAADP

22/9/2014

After many years of questions of legitimacy and the need to have a unified voice in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), Non State Actors are taking their participation seriously and are now seeking institutionalization of their role in the CAADP processes.
The NSAs have moved through a rigorous process to form a new unifying body called the Non State Actors Coalition on CAADP. This institution is quickly emerging out of an NSA driven process supported by Africa Lead with the blessing of the African Union Commission (AUC).  The initial group is comprised of Action Aid, ACORD, ESAFF, Oxfam, One.org, PNAAC, Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FARNPAN), WARESA, PROPAC, and many other indigenous and national level organizations and coalitions.  The process has evolved from an exercise which developed a vision, mission, objectives and strategies for the coalition as early as May 2014 and most recently developed a work plan, operational and governance framework to a secretariat that is now poised to launch with the intension of mapping out all NSAs in Africa interested in influencing AUC and NEPAD CAADP processes at local, national, regional, continental and global levels.
This undertaking should enable the various actors to actively participate in decision making processes and influencing the course and implementation of the CAADP at all levels, right from production at grassroots levels where the small holder farmer plays a key role to holding national and regional governments accountable and responsive to citizens through joint sector reviews, and sectoral reviews as well as guiding and calling upon governments to allocate more resources (a minimum of 10% of national budgets) to agriculture.
This eagerly and long awaited coalition has already attracted a lot of NSA support with most international NGOs supporting it and having the blessing of several national and regional farmers’ organizations and grassroots movements which have supported the efforts of this coalition thus far. Some of the efforts of this coalition in the making have included the Joint Policy Recommendations which were drafted to influence the just adopted Malabo declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods in 2014 which adopted many of the NSA recommendations.

ESAFF joins this NSA coalition as part of the Board supporting the technical mapping of the Private Sector actors. We are looking forward to having a greater impact on the African policy landscape and hopefully this NSAC will change the way local governments, national governments and regional governments respond to citizens’ aspirations through inclusive participation of all actors.

** The NSA involves all actors in the agriculture sector who are not government or intergovernmental players. These include farmers, farmers’ organizations, Civil Society, NGOs, CBOs, FBOs, grassroots movements, eminent persons, business sector and private sector.