Align Extension Services to Africa’s CAADP AGENDA-Prof Richard Mkandawire

By Grace Musimami

Reknown champion of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and current Director Africa Director of the Alliance for African Partnership (AAP), Professor Richard Mkandawire has underscored the need for players in the agriculture sector to align extension and advisory services at the continental level to the continental framework, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
Mkandawire who was delivering a keynote address titled “Embedding African Agricultural Advisory Services and Extension into CAADP: A Call to Action,” at the start of the 7th Africa wide Agricultural Extension Week (AAEW) currently underway Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
CAADP is an Agenda 2063 continental initiative that aims to help African countries eliminate hunger and reduce poverty by raising economic growth through agriculture-led development.

According to Mkandawire, from the continental programme authorities have learned a lot of lessons, including a need to have a coalition of the willing in driving transformative food systems in Africa.
“We need to bring on board civil society organisations, researchers, institutions of higher learning to work together with one collective voice,” Mkandawire said.
He also underscored the need to strengthen advisory services by ensuring that there is adequate financing made available by governments.

“We need to start looking at innovative financing mechanisms in our own countries. We cannot continue to rely on the Global North to perpetually fund our programmes.
“It is time, that we began to look at, especially the middle class. To what extent is the middle class in Africa contributing to the restoration of their own agricultural sector, including restoration of our soils. Because our soils are among the most degraded globally,” he said.

The 7th Africa-wide Agricultural Extension Week (AAEW) has started in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe on Monday.The week is being commemorated under the theme ‘Rebranding Extension for Enhanced Public/Private Sector Driven Commercialisation, Industrialisation, and Inclusive Food Systems’.
The week is being hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) and the Malawi Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (MaFAAS) and has attracted delegates from within Africa and beyond.