The Malabo Declaration and agenda 2063: making climate smart agriculture real with conservation agriculture in Africa.

The African Union (AU) has provided the vision and even a hint of the future through Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, to be achieved, in part, through accelerated agricultural growth and transformation, leading to shared prosperity and improved livelihoods. The promulgation is contained in the Malabo Declaration of the AU Summit held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in June 2014. Attaining the ambitious commitments of ending hunger, doubling productivity, halving post-harvest losses and poverty, enhancing resilience in livelihoods and production systems to climate variability and other shocks, and reducing child stunting to 10% and numbers of underweight children to 5% by 2025 requires a definition of the strategies and the operative paradigms. The Declaration also calls for African agriculture to become climate smart. This chapter presents the strategic positioning of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in making climate smart agriculture (CSA) real in Africa and harnessing partnerships, informed by science and analyses of lessons from past interventions. We conclude that investing US$50 per household, in a capacity development programme in CA for 25 million households, has the potential to increase land productivity, produce food surpluses and transform livelihoods, thus attaining the Malabo Declaration targets. The investment in and adoption of CA-based CSA to that magnitude will not only move Africa's agriculture to a new level, where a significant proportion of agricultural land is managed with CA systems, but also supply competitively priced raw materials for transformative industrial and economic growth in Africa.

COVID-19 and Social Differentiation in African Agriculture

This brief presents a summary of key findings from a multi-country study of social differentiation in African agricultural value chains in the context of COVID-19. It aims to understand how trends in the politics and participation of different actors in agriculture have contributed to patterns of social differentiation, and how these patterns have interacted with the shock of COVID-19. It brings attention both to the implications of political decision-making and the effects of the pandemic on value chain structures and those working within the sector.

Politics, Power and Social Differentiation in African Agricultural Value Chains: The Effects of COVID-19

Since the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, policymaking at a national and continental level has increasingly turned to agricultural commercialisation as the foundation for Africa’s long-term nutrition and food security. However, socio-economic inequalities, land tenure and food insecurity, as well as livelihood and income precarities remain widespread challenges. The effects of shocks, such as COVID-19, have overlaid emergent and entrenched patterns of social differentiation that shape access to resources, markets, and other opportunities for those involved in commercial agriculture. This paper considered the impacts of COVID-19 on value chains in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, to ask: 1) What can political settlements analyses tell us about agricultural value chains and responses to COVID-19 in the countries studied? 2) How are structures and power relations throughout the value chains and actors’ responses to COVID-19 related to social differentiation in the context of African agriculture?

Enhancing the Glopan Food Systems Framework by Integrating Gender: Relevance for Women in African Agriculture

Globally, gender inequalities constrain food security, with women often disproportionately affected. Women play a fundamental role in household food and nutrition security. The multiple roles women play in various areas of the food system are not always recognised. This oversight emerges from an overemphasis on one aspect of the food system, without considering how this area might affect or be affected by another aspect. This study aimed to draw on international commitments and treaties using content analysis to enhance the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Security food systems framework by integrating a gender perspective. The study found that generally, there is a consensus on specific actions that can be taken to advance gender equality at specific stages of the food system. However, governance and social systems constraints that are not necessarily part of the food system, but have a significant bearing on men and women’s capacity to effectively participate in the food system, need to be addressed. While the proposed conceptual framework has some limitations, it offers a foundation on which researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders can begin conceptualising the interconnectedness of gender barriers in the food system.