East Africa leads in agriculture targets
Saturday February 03 2018
East African countries are leading in implementing Africa’s agricultural transformation policies.
According to a report on the Malabo declaration, Southern Africa comes second.
The declaration is a set of agricultural goals that Heads of State attending the African Union Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea in June 2014 adopted, to be attained by 2025. The Africa Agricultural Transformation Scorecard tracks progress in commitments made by governments.
East Africa managed an average score of 4.20, which indicates it is on track to meeting its commitments when assessed against the 3.94 benchmark for 2017, with five out of the eight regional countries that submitted their progress to the AU, managing the minimum 3.92 score.
Rwanda was ranked the best agriculturally transformed country in Africa with a score of 6.1, thanks to political and institutional reforms. Burundi scored 4.7, Ethiopia 5.3, Kenya 4.8 and Uganda 4.5, to cement the region’s 4.2 score ahead of the Southern Africa region which scored 4.02, and Northern, Central and Western Africa which scored 3.83, 3.62 and 2.35 respectively.
Speaking at the launch of the scorecard, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn asked the seven countries that did not submit their reports to do so in the next review in 2020.