CAADP Kampala Declaration and its Domestication: How Nigeria is Leveraging the Power of Community of Practice

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) policy framework reflects the recognition of agriculture-led economy as a driver for enhancing economic growth, reducing poverty, and increasing food security on the African continent.

Since the adoption of the CAADP during the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security in 2003, the Africa Heads of State and Governments have continued to reaffirm their commitments towards the sector through increased budgetary allocation, improved agricultural investment and intra-African trade, and mostly recently, through the Kampala Declaration, aimed at creating more resilient and sustainable agrifood systems that benefit farmers, improve nutrition and support economic stability.

 From Kampala to Abuja: Community of Practice as vehicle for effective Kampala CAADP Domestication and implementation

Mutual accountability remains a core principle for tracking progress on these commitments particularly at regional and national levels. With this goal of inclusive accountability in mind, the government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS) has expressed its readiness to align and synergize with stakeholders to achieve the aims of the Kampala Declaration (2026 – 2036).

This remains one of the highlights of the one-day Community of Practice Summit on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) organized by FMAFS in collaboration with IFPRI, GIZ Nigeria, ECOWAS, and ActionAid Nigeria in Abuja on Monday, October 6, 2025. The event, which featured technical presentations, brought together Commissioners of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Rural Development from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), research institutions, development practitioners, CSOs, and farmer groups.

Delivering the keynote address, the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari emphasized that “synergy between the Federal and State Governments is not just beneficial, it is indispensable for achieving sustainable food security, resilient livelihoods, and the transformation change envisioned by the Kampala Declaration. Through effective coordination and shared responsibilities, all tiers of government can impactfully streamline policies, mobilize resources, and implement interventions”. The Minister also unveiled the Simplified Kampala Declaration document (2026 -2035) at the summit to facilitate sub-national level domestication and accountability. Over forty CAADP non-state actors group declared their commitment to collaborate with the Nigeria government in the successful implementation of the six strategic objectives of CAADP Kampala Declaration.

Prof. Rapheal Babatunde, Regional Expert for ECOWAS on CAADP, reviewed the Kampala CAADP Declaration under the Nigeria context to build a common understanding of stakeholders for ownership, inclusive engagement, and domestication at the sub-national level. Key conclusions from the presentation are that the Kampala declaration:

• signifies a watershed moment and collective will of African leaders to build resilient, inclusive and sustainable agricultural systems by 2035. Smallholder farmers are pivotal to realizing this transformative vision.
• identifies six Strategic Objectives as key priorities for member states to pursue and used to review their agrifood systems investment in the next decade.
• offers an opportunity to reinvigorate national and state-level commitments to domesticate and implement national agricultural policies and strategies that align with the CAADP.
• requires joint ownership, inclusive participation, and practical roadmaps that translate continental commitments into national and sub-national actions.

Azubike Nwokoye, Food Systems Specialist with ActionAid-Nigeria, while presenting on “Agriculture Budget Investments Resultant Effects on States’ Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and Employment Generation for 2025” showed that increased funding to agriculture increases States’ internally generated revenue (IGR) and reduces unemployment, and budgetary allocations should go to strategic areas of investments, including extension service, credit access, women and youth in agriculture, labor-saving technologies, post-harvest losses reduction, climate-resilient agriculture, among others.

Presenting the IFPRI’s research priorities to support CAADP Kampala implementation in Nigeria, Oliver Kiptoo Kirui, Research Fellow and IFPRI-Nigeria Country Program Leader, emphasized the use of data to drive investment alignment with CAADP targets, support states to translate national frameworks into operational programs, and strengthen research-policy linkages among FMAFS, National Bureau of Statistics, NARIs, IFPRI, and AU/NEPAD. These are needed to generate knowledge that enables Nigeria to close the gaps across the six Kampala CAADP pillars of productivity and trade, investment and finance, food and nutrition security, inclusivity, resilience and governance, he said. The presentation identified six research needs to support evidence-based Kampala CAADP implementation in Nigeria. These are aligned with the CAADP Kampala Declaration pillars and are summarized below.

Table 1: Research Gaps and Opportunities for CAADP Implementation in Nigeria

IFPRI facilitated six working groups to develop state-driven approaches to implementing the six outcomes of the declaration and ensure contextualized solutions per zone. The groups focused on three key areas: (i) resource mobilization from internal and external sources to support CAADP implementation at the sub-national level; (ii) operationalizing the roles of women, youth, and Persons with Disabilities across all levels; and (iii) strengthening ownership, accountability, and reporting mechanisms among stakeholders to advance the implementation of the six (6) strategic objectives of the CAADP Kampala.

Conclusion

Overall, participants recognized that Nigeria has made steady progress in the previous cycles of the CAADP Biennial Review and the need for the development of a 10-year roadmap to enable states take ownership of the implementation of the Kampala Declaration at the sub-national level.

The State Commissioners of Agriculture play critical roles in championing the implementation of the CAADP Kampala Declaration (2026 – 2035) and emphasized that the Kampala Declaration and CAADP Strategy and Action Plan (2026–2035) adopts a holistic food systems approach, encompassing all sectors of the agrifood economy and promoting integrated, cross-sectoral development.

As next steps, the Summit made key recommendations.

• Organization of the Community of Practice meeting bi-annually as a platform for sharing experience, exploring opportunities and advocating agrifood systems enhancing policies at all levels.
• Declaration of a state of emergency in agriculture, research, and mechanization, alongside the implementation of targeted interventions to reduce household nutritional vulnerability through scalable, inclusive models that actively engage youth, women, and persons with disabilities (PWDs) as key drivers of change.
• Stronger coordination among stakeholders to prevent duplication of efforts and foster co-creation, synergy, and effective collaboration.
• Development of region-specific solutions and local adaptation of agricultural innovations tailored towards comparative and competitive advantage of the states to boost productivity and sustainability.
• Strengthened stakeholder coordination to eliminate duplication of efforts and to promote co-creation, synergy, and effective collaboration across all levels of intervention.
• Increased public expenditure on agrifood system towards the minimum 10% of the public expenditure at Federal and State levels to enhance the achievement of the six strategic objectives of CAADP.
• Deliberate actions to eliminate bottlenecks, redundancies, and bureaucratic inefficiencies, and continuous sensitization of all stakeholders on their roles and responsibilities in the implementation of CAADP Kampala Declaration.
• Budgetary allocations should prioritize strategic investments such as extension services, access to credit, youth and women empowerment, climate-resilient and sustainable agriculture, research and innovation, post-harvest management, and effective coordination, monitoring, and evaluation, as a major driver of increased states’ IGR.

Hyacinth Edeh is a Country Program Manager at the Nigeria Strategy Support Program, Abuja; Oliver Kirui is a DSG Research Fellow and Leader of IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program.

This work is supported by the AFR and Food Security Portal.