Moussa Faki Mahamat, African Union Commission Chairperson’s Speech at the CAADP Extraordinary Summit.

Excellencies, Heads of State and Government and Delegations,
Honourable Ministers,
Madame Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission,
Esteemed African Commissioners
Representatives of the Regional Economic Communities,
Representatives of our Partners,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great joy that I set foot in this splendid, verdant city of Kampala, which has been decked out in all its colours, to host this important African Union Extraordinary Summit to assess the situation of Agricultural on our Continent.

I am particularly pleased to address to His Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda, to the Government and the brotherly people of Uganda, my best wishes for the year 2025, and my warm thanks for the quality of the welcome, marked by brotherhood and special attention, and even more, for all the efforts made to ensure the best conditions for success in the organisation of this Summit.

Holding a Summit on Agriculture in Africa in Kampala, is the right thing to do; a wonderful sign of recognition of your total commitment, Mr President Museveni, to farmers and herders. You yourself, are a farmer. You are also a Champion of transforming Agriculture into a powerful lever for wealth creation for the people of Africa.

Excellencies,Ladies and Gentlemen,

Africa is proud to have more than 60% of its population young. It is also proud to have 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, water and forest resources that place it at the forefront of the world. This is why it is deeply questioned about its current paradoxical food security situation. Hunger still kills in Africa!

The profound disaffection between the land and African youth. The disaffection of these young people with Agriculture and the rural world, their break with the ancestral world towards urban uncertainties and perilous emigration, all these increase our existential drama.

Who do we hold responsible for such phenomenon? Not on the Youths, for sure, but on our systems that have failed to promote efficient strategies that generate hope and prosperity on our lands.

Such concerns have been yours. You thus opted for an institutional solution through CAADP adopted by the Assembly of the Union in 2003, in Maputo, Mozambique.

This ambitious Programme has been implemented since 2014, within the framework of the Malabo Declaration. The various biennial evaluations of the commitments made by Member States, initiated in 2017, under this Declaration, certainly show progress towards achieving the set objectives, but at an unsatisfactory pace of progress

This is why I would like to welcome the preparatory work undertaken by the African Union Commission, AUDA-NEPAD, the Regional Economic Communities and Experts of our Member States as well as our technical and financial partners, in preparing the Post-Malabo Declaration or what will be known as the Kampala Declaration, submitted here today for your approval. It symbolises the sum total of all the efforts made upstream in identifying all the negative factors that lie at the root of the low rate of the attainment of our set objectives for the Agricultural sector on the Continent.

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