Report lauds Tanzania on Malabo Declaration goals

Agriculture is a key sector in EAC economies, accounting for 25 to 44 per cent of the partner states' Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 80 per cent of employment. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Malabo commitments target to enhance finance in agriculture, ending hunger and halving poverty by 2025

Arusha. Tanzania is largely on track in implementing its commitments under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), known as Malabo goals.

The country scored higher points than its partners in the bloc in the benchmark on its commitment to cut by half the share of its population that is poor.

"Tanzania and Rwanda stayed on track,” said Mr Furaha Marwa, the principal agricultural economist with the East African Community (EAC).

He revealed this here when he tabled a report on the performance of the seven nation bloc on the Malabo commitments aimed to enhance agricultural production.

The commitments included, among others, enhancing finance in agriculture, ending hunger by 2025 and halving poverty also by 2025.

The others are boosting intra-African trade, resilience to climate risks, mutual accountability and re-commitment to CAADP itself.

CAADP has its origins in 2003 during the African Union (AU) summit in Maputo and was reinforced by the Malabo summit in 2014 with implementation starting in 2015

Mr Marwa told the just-ended East African Civil Society Summit here that despite a false start Tanzania has performed well in recent years.

"Tanzania moved from not being on track during the second Biennial Review (BR2) in 2019 to being on track in 2021,” he said.

The country, he quoted from the report, recorded "higher scores of performance" on the trade commitment in 2021 than in 2019.

Presentation of the EAC performance on CAADP was chaired by the East and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF), a Morogoro-based regional body.

The report obtained by The Citizen showed that Tanzania emerged first ahead of the rest of the EAC states on the 2021 review on intra-African trade.

Tanzania scored 4.2 percent, trailed by Burundi and Rwanda (both scored 3.1 percent) in boosting the continental trade in agriculture commodities and services.

It was second to Rwanda in mutual accountability for actions and results.

Tanzania scored 9.3 percent against Rwanda's 9.8 percent.

Tanzania also trailed Rwanda in a commitment to halve poverty through agriculture by 2025 as envisaged in the Malabo Declaration.

The country, however, performed dismally in enhancing investment finance in agriculture, emerging the fifth in the EAC.

However, it emerged first - alongside Rwanda - with 10 percent points in its general re-commitment to the CAADP process, the report said.

Agriculture is a key sector in EAC economies, accounting for 25 to 44 per cent of the partner states' Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 80 per cent of employment.

While more than 70 per cent of the industries in the region are agro-based, agricultural commodities constitute 65 per cent of the volume of intra-regional trade.

The first AU Malabo Biennial Review Report for 2017 was released in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on January 30th, 2018 during the Heads of States Summit.

The report insists the EAC partner states can achieve the critical goals of the Malabo Declaration through increased investments in agriculture.