CAADP zonal workshop

One of the main principles of how the United States is seeking to address global food security is to work through country-led plans. In the African context, this means through the African Union endorsed Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP). Through this process, a country (the government, but also private sector, farmers organizations, civil society, etc) creates a comprehensive investment plan for several years to address agriculture development and food security. Then there can be greater coordination so that you don’t have many different entities off doing their own thing, but there is an agreed-upon strategy to unite all players to a common goal.
Since being here, I’ve been able to witness the process of creating the Tanzanian plan. There has been a great deal of energy from the Tanzanians who are drafting it and feel a sense of ownership. But it’s a challenge as the immediate reaction for the that some donors or development partners have is to wish for an outside consultant to just quickly dive in and do the work. But I believe the longer road may be more sustainable.
So this past week I got to attend a meeting in Zanzibar for stakeholders to review and discuss the current draft of the investment plan. Although there were some things that I had wished had been different (it would have been good to have more private sector, civil society, and farmers and fishermen themselves attend; some of the materials were printed in English), there were other things that encouraged me (there was honest discussion on how to improve shortcomings of the current plan, I was really the only foreigner there and the entire workshop was held in Swahili).
It takes a lot, though, to bring this all together and make a unified plan. One component of the strategy for agriculture development in Tanzania is with the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, and the relationship between that and the CAADP investment plan still needs to be more clearly articulated. On the same day that this workshop was taking place, President Kikwete was presenting the SAGCOT investment blueprint at the World Economic Forum, where USAID Administrator Shah was also present.
To conclude this post, I'd like to pay tribute to Mama Ndaba from the Ministry of Agriculture who is one of the people moving the process forward. She's pictured in the first photo. I've admired her dedication and perseverance in the long process. If you think of it, please pray for her extended family. The day after this workshop, her nephew passed away, which has been very hard for the family.