The CAADP-XP4 Consortium, comprising of the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA), West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) and Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) jointly held the 2023 Joint Portfolio Review and Planning Meeting from 20 – 24 March 2023 in Sally, Senegal. The CAADP-XP4 Consortium gets its financial support from the European Union which is administered by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The main objective of the Joint Portfolio Review and Planning meeting was to assess CAADP-XP4 project implementation progress in line with the Post-MTR recommendations, take stock of lessons learnt, jointly plan for implementation of the project, and provide strategic guidance for improved cooperation from the Technical Committee (TC) and Advisory Committee (AC). Additionally, the Consortium also reviewed the progress made on the implementation of the joint activities, discussed critical issues raised during the post-MTR M&E review, and finalized the review of indicators, targets, achievements and true lists of project achievements.
At the same event, Ms Gadzeni Mulenga, the IFAD Programme Officer AR4D & CAADP-XP4 Focal point Person, gave her opening remarks urging the Consortium to be strategic by including more emerging issues from the global perspective and turn them into actionable items.
The CCARDESA CAADP-XP4 Coordinator, Dr Baitsi Podisi, acknowledged the thriving partnership of the Consortium, including the spirit of brotherhood that has been engendered among the partners. He also highlighted the partnership that CCARDESA and ASARECA harnessed to jointly promote the use of satellite data, products and services under the Digital Earth Africa platform in Botswana and South Africa as part of the Australian Government-funded Information for Agriculture and Food Security project. He also appreciated the partnership forged by FARA with the AUC, which has positioned the XP4 consortium members to better engage on agricultural development priorities in the continent such as the CAADP Biennial Review.
During the same event, rotational Consortium Chairmanship was transferred from ASARECA to CORAF. CORAF through Dr Njukwe Dr Emmanuel Njukwe accepted Consortium Technical Committee chairmanship and pledged to continue the tireless efforts of his predecessors ASARECA, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa - FARA, African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), and CCARDESA in facilitating more joint resource mobilizations activities.
Newly elected FARA Executive Director- Designate, Dr Aggrey Agumya, said that he considers the planning meeting one of the most significant. He expressed gratitude for how the Consortium helps to consolidate the partnership, and the joint agreement and forms the glue that holds us together. It also allows us to see how far we have come and where we are heading by looking at the trends in terms of numbers.
Key and resounding message from the consortium members was that they needed to foster and forge strengthened partnerships and invigorate joint resource mobilization in the remaining phase of the programme.
The Consortium finalized inputs for the 2022 CAADP-XP4 progress report identified activities for joint implementation by the Consortium in 2023. This included commitment to host side events and engagement at strategic events such the forthcoming ASARECA General Assembly in May, in Uganda; the Africa Agribusiness Science Week to be held at the sidelines of both the CCARDESA and FARA General Assemblies in June 4-9, 2023 in Durban, South Africa, The 5th AU-EU Agriculture Ministerial Conference in Rome (30th June, 2023); the Africa Fertiliser and Soil Health Summit, in Dakar, Senegal in July, 2023; the African Green Revolution Forum in Tanzania in September, 2023, The CoP-28 of the UNFCCC in Nov-Dec, 2023, the Africa Agricultural Extension Week in November, Abuja, Nigeria; the CAADP Partnership Platform in December and the Pan-African Network for economic Analysis of Policies and the International Research Consortium inception processes.
The meeting ended with the Consortium happy that all the expected outcomes of the meeting were met. The team left the meeting resolutely to fully implement the joint activities with one common goal of setting the programme on a higher pedestal.
