Advancing African Agriculture
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First subscribers of the 2009-2010 CSO Monitoring report - Advancing African Agriculture SIGNATURES CSO Monitoring report AAA
CSO Monitoring 2009-2010: The Impact of Europe’s Policies and Practices on African Agriculture and Food Security
Over the past two years, CSOs have taken the initiative, backed by CONCORD's European Food Security Group (EFSG) and in partnership with African farmers' regional platforms, to monitor the extent to which European policies have been in line with the approaches agreed in the EC's 2007 Communication “Advancing African Agriculture” (AAA). The current review is highly topical as it is being released just at the time the new EC Food Security Communication (an EU policy framework to assist developing countries in addressing food security challenges - COM(2010)127 final) is being launched. The lessons learned from this review are very relevant to the roll-out of the new Communication.
In the first assessment of the CSO monitoring exercise in 2008, the range of issues covered was deliberately broad in order to highlight the dangers of incoherence among policies/practices in areas ranging from aid to trade, agriculture, investment and agribusiness. The findings were presented at a seminar in the Commission attended by representatives of several directorates and departments as well as government representatives and civil society (see the documents here). The assessment was welcomed and CSOs were encouraged to follow up with further, more focused work.
After consultation with the African farmers' regional platforms, three studies that relate to AAA were commissioned - priority policy areas which impact African agriculture directly or indirectly:
• The 1 billion Euro 'Food Facility' (with country studies in Burkina Faso, Burundi and Mali),
• The milk sector of the Common Agriculture Policy (with special emphasis on impacts in Senegal, Burkina Faso and Kenya),
• European involvement in 'Land grabbing' (with a particular look at Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia).
The conclusions of the studies (see the document 2009-2010 CSO monitoring report AAA) are a sharp reminder that the impacts of policies, often made for a different set of reasons, can further burden African farmers who are struggling to feed their communities and countries in increasingly harsh environments.
The EC's Communication “Advancing African Agriculture” (AAA) was published, as you may know, in July 2007 after significant input from civil society. It was a proposal for continental and regional level cooperation on agricultural development in Africa. It had an emphasis on promoting smallholder family-based farming, production for local and regional markets, and participation by social actors in decision-making on relevant policies and programmes. What has been found through this CSO monitoring exercise, is a strong degree of policy incoherence with negative effects on African farmers who should have benefited from EC policy, had AAA been fully implemented. We are determined to do what we can to help ensure that the new EC Food Security Communication is applied with rigor across the range of European policies and practices.
This review is intended to make a useful contribution to the debate around the EC's impacts on Africa and especially its small-scale food providers who feed the continent, provide livelihoods for the majority and sustain the biosphere. We hope it will strengthen policy coherence at this critical time for securing future food.
Attachments
AAA 2009-2010 letter asking signatures.pdf [17.6KB]
2009-2010 CSO monitoring report summaries.pdf [52.4KB]
The milk sector of the Common Agriculture Policy.pdf [860.5KB]
The 1 billion Euro Food Facility.pdf [435.7KB]
