An Inaugural Biennial Report to the African Union has revealed that Zimbabwe is not on track regarding the implementation of the June 2014 Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared prosperity and Improved Livelihoods.
Zimbabwe, which is amongst the four countries that are not on track the Southern African Development Community (SADC), is targeting to reduce post harvest losses by 50% in the next eight years from 2017 in line with the Malabo declaration according to state media.
“Among the 12 countries (in SADC), eight are on track and these include Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa and Swaziland) while, four countries (Madagascar, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are not on track,” states the report.
Despite that Zimbabwe has fallen short, the overall average score for SADC is 4.08 against the 3.94 benchmark for 2017, indicating that the region is on track in meeting the CAADP/Malabo targets.
SADC is on track on four commitment areas which include, re-committing to the CAADP process, halving poverty through agriculture which it did by 2015, boosting intra-Africa trade in agriculture commodities and enhancing mutual accountability for actions and results.
“It was evident that countries with relatively good agricultural data management systems seem to be performing better in the Biennial Review.” the report to the assembly states.
The other commitment areas in the Malabo Declaration include enhancing Investment Finance in Agriculture, ending hunger by 2025 and enhancing resilience to clime variability.