The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is the most ambitious and comprehensive agricultural reform effort ever undertaken in Africa. An initiative of the African Union (AU) and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), it represents a fundamental shift toward development that is fully owned and led by African governments. It reflects African governments’ recognition of agriculture as central for the alleviation of poverty and hunger and hence for reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

1. The pursuit of six percent average annual growth in the agricultural sector at national level; and,
2. Allocation of ten percent of national budgets to agriculture.

A framework rather than a roadmap, CAADP is composed of a set of key principles and targets for achieving these aims by 2015. It is at once flexible enough to accommodate the need for approaches toward poverty and hunger alleviation to be tailored to regional and national contexts, and broad enough to address policy and capacity issues across the entire agricultural sector and across the entire African continent.

CAADP’s vision of agriculture as a driver of poverty and hunger alleviation is underpinned by four pillars.

You can learn more about each pillar directly from the CAADP website by clicking on the respective links.

• Pillar 1: Extending the area under sustainable land management and reliable water control systems
• Pillar 2: Improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for market access
• Pillar 3: Increasing food supply and reducing hunger
• Pillar 4: Agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption