Happy New Year! It’s now just about one week into the New Year 2014 and I trust that you have gotten off to a good start this year.
The African Union (AU) has nominated 2014 as The Year of Agriculture and Food Security. This is also the theme of the 22nd AU summit which is scheduled to be held on 21-31 January 2014 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The summit also marks the completion of a decade since the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security that gave rise to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
Under this declaration, AU member states committed to allocating at least 10 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture within five years.
I think the 22nd AU summit will be a useful forum for member states to take stock of their performance vis-à-vis the Maputo Declaration target and against that of their peers.
Meanwhile, I hope to keep blogging about various developments in agricultural research and development in Africa in 2014. As always, your comments and feedback are most welcome.
Happy New Year!
Sci-Afrique 