2008 the 12th Africa Forum was held inAddis Ababa, where around 150 people from 14 African countries gathered together around the theme of Making agri-business work for rural livelihoods: in support of CAADP implementation at country level. This year’s forum represented a turning point since for the first time in its 10-year history, the forum was co-organised by NEPAD – the New Partnership for Africa’s Development – under its Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
 
As is usual for the Africa Forum, this year’s event picked up the thread from its predecessor, the 11th Africa Forum 2007 in Accra, Ghana. Based on discussion at the 2007 forum, 12 Country Teams presented a Country Action Plan outlining activities the team members planned to do themselves or to help others do, in support of rural growth in their respective countries. Seven of these 12 Country Teams remained active also after the 11th forum and these teams presented an overview of progress achieved against their action plan on the first day of this year’s 12th forum.
 
This Africa Forum 2008 set itself two objectives:
1. to increase the relevance of the forum’s output to ongoing country processes; and
2. to establish the role and future of the forum in the long term.

An Africa-wide platform for exchange and learning

The link between the Africa forum and NEPAD’s CAADP programme proved successful in meeting both objectives: By linking their action plan to ongoing CAADP processes, country teams hopefully manage to both strengthen the CAADP process in their country as well as improve the chances of their action plan being implemented. At the same time, representatives from NEPAD’s Agricultural Secretariat (responsible for CAADP) appreciated the forum as an Africa-wide platform of exchange and learning in agriculture that could help speed up CAADP implementation.
 
In five parallel sessions, participants were offered a total of 20 case studies of agri-business successes. Each presentation listed the factors that had made it a success, and the conditions that are required to upscale this success. Case studies covered a wide spectrum from commodities (e.g. pearl millet in Namibia, potatoes in Kenya, fish in Cameroon, cotton in Benin) to successes in partnership and networking (e.g. outgrower schemes in Ethiopia, commodity association in Cote d’Ivoire); from enabling access to assets (e.g. rural fi nance in Kenya, protection of property among peasants in Benin) to creating the right frame conditions (governance and leadership in Burkina Faso, restoring farm-cycles in the aftermath of crisis in Kenya). Plenary presentations built a framework for these success stories and dealt mostly with two topics:
1. responding to escalating food prices; and
2. the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, its pillars, its country processes and how these can help agriculture growth at country level.
 
Important for participants was to realise that CAADP is not a separate programme, but rather a set of principles linked to a participative country process that helps to ‘screen’ and strengthen national policies, structures and capacities such that these become more effective vehicles for agricultural growth.
 
Based on the inspiration drawn from the agri-business successes, and within the context of opportunities offered by CAADP, participants then divided into country-groups and drew up action plans. Nine action plans were presented on the last day (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Zambia). Recurrent objectives were strengthening the value-chain for key commodities and making optimum use of the CAADP process to make national stakeholders and processes better able in meeting the challenges of agricultural growth.

There was widespread agreement over the fact that the link between the Africa Forum and NEPAD’s CAADP had proved beneficial, not only for this year’s forum, but for the future as well. It is clear that a future cooperation between CAADP and the Africa Forum is mutually benefi cial: An annual platform of exchange, where CAADP country focal persons can meet with CAADP Head Office and CAADP Pillar Institution representatives, or where CAADP country Round Table members can exchange experience across countries, would be a welcome instrument in overall CAADP implementation. As a platform of exchange, the Africa Forum itself would benefit from an Africa-wide institutional and policy context within which its ‘peer learning’ finds a home and a purpose.
 
Désirée Dietvorst