As member states of the African Union draw closer to the First Ten Year Implementation Plan of Africa’s Agenda 2063, there is the need to find out whether Africa is on course to achieving the goals it has set for itself. It is in this light that the Speakers of Parliament of 21 African countries attended the 18th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC) African Region in Yaounde, Cameroon. in July, 2023 under the theme “African Parliament and the Agenda 2063.” The conference, among other things, addressed food security challenges, implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area and the role of parliaments in strengthening openness, transparency and accountability.
The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 seeks to end hunger in all its forms, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agricultural production by the year 2030. However, in its 8th year of implementation, the magnitude of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is still high. This makes the role of African Parliaments in promoting investments in agriculture to address the challenges of food security in Africa very important and timely.
According to the World Food Programme, in 2023, more than 345 million people are facing high levels of food insecurity. This indicates a rise of about 200 million people compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. Countries in Africa are among the most-affected, with threats of famine and extreme levels of malnutrition in some affected populations in Burkina Faso, north-east Nigeria, Mali, Somalia and South Sudan. It is believed that if current trends continue, the zero hunger target will be largely missed by the year, 2030.
With regard to causes of food insecurity, conflicts in sections of the population in these African countries have impacted on food security; mainly through disruption of agricultural production as people become internally displaced and farmers grapple with agricultural investment indecisions. Climate change impacts, such as extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, and degradation of natural resources including water scarcity also fuel food insecurity, malnutrition, and lead to forced migration.
The global economic shocks have also contributed to food insecurity and compounded pre-existing economic vulnerabilities. For example, the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 and the repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine war have led to an increase in global food price and price volatilities. According to the 2023 Global Report on Food Crises, between January 2023 and April 2023, 4 out of the 10 countries with the highest food price inflation, in nominal terms, were in Africa: Zimbabwe, Egypt, Rwanda and Ghana.
As a result, many countries including some African countries are actively using trade policy interventions to respond to potential domestic food shortages, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries such as Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Morocco, and Tunisia banned exports of major food commodities while Uganda imposed taxes on exports as a way of dealing with the situation. Unfortunately, these trade measures are major sources of risk for global food price stability. This calls for urgent action to provide workable policy options or interventions to pull people from the brink of hunger, which has been projected to worsen from July to November, 2023.
African leaders are aware of the importance of agriculture in contributing to food and nutrition security, poverty reduction and overall economic growth. It is in this light that the African Union (AU) member states reaffirmed their commitments under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme by adopting the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods at the African Union Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in June 2014. This was a remarkable set of concrete agriculture goals to be attained by the year 2025, signifying the First Ten Year Implementation Plan of Africa’s Agenda 2063.
The Malabo Declaration provides direction to transform the agricultural sector and commits African Heads of States and governments to increase public investments in agriculture as a demonstration of Africa’s ownership and leadership. In this regard, African countries committed to allocate at least 10% of their national budgets to agriculture and to achieve 6% agricultural growth.
This notwithstanding, with the exception of countries such as Benin, Ethiopia, Lesotho, and Malawi, which met or surpassed the target of allocating 10% of the national budget to agriculture in 2020, the rest of the African countries’ average allocation was around 2.1%. This continued underinvestment is likely to constrain long-term agricultural productivity growth and the capacity of countries to develop value chains, reduce poverty, and ensure food security. It is therefore not surprising that the continent has also not been able to achieve the target of 6% annual growth in agriculture value-added for the period of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.
It is clear that food security in Africa requires a significant increase in investments in agriculture and rural development. However, boosting agricultural production through increased investment will not be enough to achieve food security and improved nutrition, especially if we consider that an estimated one third of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted. Targeted investments in agricultural infrastructure and basic public services for production, distribution, conservation and storage are therefore necessary.
To enhance resilience in the face of economic, health, and climate shocks, African countries will need to increase public spending on agriculture with a focus on automated irrigation systems, soil sensors, and drones which can boost efficiency in production. Besides, investments in disaster risk reduction in the agriculture sector such as digital tools for monitoring climate risks, which can identify the onset of climatic shocks before they happen and facilitate responses for building resilience, is also important.
In the face of volatile and rising food prices, rapid population growth, and climate change, governments are increasingly recognising the value of investment in agricultural research and development as an essential element to increase agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Africa Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) committed African countries to allocate at least 1% of their national budgets to agricultural research and development. Yet, while most governments are not able to meet this target, spending is directed towards research staff expansion, salary increases, and rehabilitation of dilapidated research infrastructure and equipment, rather than actual research programmes.
Parliaments can play a crucial role in promoting agricultural investments. They guide and oversee public-sector policies and budget allocations towards ensuring food security. In this vein, tracking, monitoring, and reporting on advancements towards achieving the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, NEPAD and Malabo goals and targets by various parliaments to the Pan-African Parliament will be key to measuring progress over time and to holding governments accountable for delivering on the agricultural growth and transformation commitments.
Bearing in mind that public investments and investment promotion policies are essential to facilitate and guide such investments towards sustainability, parliaments need to ensure that governments create and maintain conditions that favour investment in agribusiness and agro-industries by the private sector. The engagement of the private sector, within and outside the continent, should complement public sector investments in the agricultural sector to deliver the required financing for these bold commitments.
As part of the commitment to enhancing investment finance in agriculture, it is imperative for the Africa Union to fast-track the operationalisation of the African Investment Bank, as provided for in the Constitutive Act of the African Union, with a view to mobilising and disbursing investment finance for priority agriculture-related investment projects. As at May 2019, 22 out of the 55 countries in Africa had signed the Protocol, and 6 out of the 22 had ratified and deposited the Protocol on the Africa Investment Bank. As a matter of urgency, there is the need to entreat African governments, including Ghana, that has not signed and ratified the Protocol to do so.
In conclusion, for Africa to achieve food security, proper implementation of these agricultural investment commitments is important. This would ensure the achievement of agriculture-led growth which can reduce hunger and end poverty, boost intra-African trade in agricultural goods and services, and enhance resilience to climate variability. Parliaments, as representatives of the people, need to strengthen their role in legislation, budgeting, scrutiny and oversight in this regard.