Will Nigeria Revisit The Maputo Declaration?

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria

While Nigeria is a signatory to the Maputo Declaration signed at the second ordinary assembly of the African Union in July 2003, past governments have failed to comply with its recommendations  that African nations will give 10 per cent of their annual budgets to agriculture. Ruth Tene Natsa wonders if the incoming government will revisit the declaration. 

It has been 12 years since African heads of state and government pledged to allocate 10 per cent of their national budgets to the agriculture sector as part of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

The commitment, also known as the Maputo Declaration Target rallied African governments to increase spending in the sector to stimulate agricultural growth, reduce poverty, and build food and nutrition security.

Since then, a total of 13 countries have met or surpassed the 10 per cent target in one or more years since 2003 and they are Burundi, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately Nigeria, the largest African country with a population of over 160 million, of which 70 per cent are reported to be farmers, continue to lag behind despite records showing that the nation’s agriculture sector contributes 40 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the economy. Reports show that Nigeria has over 80 million farmers, 80 per cent of whom are small scale farmers located in rural areas and without access to the basic facilities and subsidised inputs provided by the government.

At the call for the Maputo Declaration in 2003, development experts across the globe were of the mind that the recommendation had the potential to turn the fortunes of the continent around since majority of the continent derives its livelihood from agriculture. Unfortunately while the Nigerian agriculture sector has been acclaimed to be undergoing its greatest transformation, the sector has continued to witness dwindling support from the government to its agriculture sector rather than increase. Meanwhile the proposed 2015 agriculture budget shows that the Nigerian government’s budgetary allocations to the sector continues to drop from 1.7 per cent in 2013 to 1.44 per cent in 2014 and to 0.9 in 2015. These very low allocations have consistently remained meagre and not meeting the 10 per cent Maputo Declaration commitment as reiterated in Malabo on Agriculture and Food Security.

For programme coordinator, Civil Society Coalition for Poverty Eradication, Peter Egwudah, “Nigeria does not have a defined agricultural agenda or framework, little wonder that the country is not able to leverage on its inherent potential to turn around the fortunes in the sector.”

Speaking on the need to adopt the Maputo Declaration, he said, “Without mincing words, agriculture sustains the economy of most countries in the globe. From the production of food and employment, agriculture provides the raw materials for manufacturers in developed countries. Industrialisation of a nation cannot be attained without the development of agriculture across the value chain.”

The Food and Agriculture advisor of ActionAid, Azubuike Nwokoye, while presenting the organisation’s findings on the 2015 Budget analysis lamented that despite government’s increased attention on agriculture in recent years by introducing a range of policies to increase productivity, Nigeria’s budgetary allocations and actual spending on agriculture are woefully inadequate to reduce poverty, especially on the key services needed by smallholder farmers like women and youths, and that not only was the figures for the states low, varying from 2.0-5.9 per cent, but it is also extremely erratic.

As the need to heed to the call for the implementation of the declaration becomes more urgent with the collapse in the price of crude oil in the international market, Nigeria is also awaiting its transition to a new government.

Credit: Leadership Newspaper