Investment in agriculture: Where is my 10%? 10 years later, 10% less than 10 countries: the bitter truth about the Maputo

Declaration
On 10th July 2003, all African Union Heads of State signed the Maputo Declaration promising
to spend at least 10% of their national budget on agriculture by 2008. Ten years later, it is a
sad state of affairs. All ECOWAS countries have developed National Agricultural Investment
Plans, but only seven African countries have consistently reached their target between
2003 and 2009, five of which are in West Africa. Since 2006, Ghana has joined this group.
Burkina Faso is the country that has allocated proportionally the highest amount of funds to
agriculture over the long term and achieved the target of 6% GDP agricultural growth
between 2001 and 2006.
“In 2003, the African Heads of State raised a lot of hopes by putting agriculture back at the
heart of the continent’s political agenda. Ten years on, the symbolic threshold of Maputo still
remains an unattained target for almost 80% of African countries. African leaders must fulfil,
or even exceed, their commitment to these 10%, but above all they must review the quality
of their investments”, declared Mr Aliou Ibrahima, General Secretary for APESS
(Association for the Promotion of Livestock Farming in the Sahel and Savannahs).
Although ECOWAS recently reviewed the National Agriculture Investment Plans and
recognised the role and potential of family run farms, few countries actually have plans that
are specifically focused on them. In contrast, most agriculture budgets are dedicated to a
limited number of programmes and directed to large farms. Key areas like livestock have
also been neglected.
For Dodo Boureima, the Executive Secretary of the Réseau Billital Maroobé (RBM), “it
is inconceivable to talk of high quality investment and disregard livestock. In the Sahel,
livestock farming represents a big part of the agricultural sector but it only receives a minor
share of funding. In Niger, it accounts for close to 22% of exports and is considered as one
of the sectors that contributes most to poverty reduction. Unfortunately, it remains the poor
cousin of the agricultural sector with just 1.7% of the national budget in 2009.”
In West Africa, women contribute to the production of 80% of basic foodstuffs, although only
10% of them have access to agricultural credit and only 8% own their own land. They could
grow 20 to 30% more food if they benefitted from the same access to land, fertilizer, seeds,
and credit as men.
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POSCAO-AC
By 2030, the West African population will have doubled and reached 500 million inhabitants,
greatly increasing demand for agricultural and animal products. This offers an extraordinary
opportunity to lift the most vulnerable populations out of hunger- an opportunity that must not
be missed. On the 10th anniversary of the Maputo declaration, the GROW campaign is
launching a direct appeal to all African Heads of State to invest more and better in,
especially towards small scale farmers, women and livestock.
Eric Hazard, the Manager of the GROW campaign in West Africa concludes that: “By
making high-quality investment in agriculture a priority, governments can guarantee food
sovereignty for West Africa and secure the well-being of its people. People have a right to
food, but to make this right a reality it is essential to invest more and better in small-scale
farms, particularly livestock, which employ nearly two-thirds of the region’s population.”