Addis Ababa - The African Union Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Blue Economy, Josefa Sacko, on Wednesday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, regretted that although agriculture is an important sector, the majority of farmers on the continent practice rainfed agriculture, which is highly vulnerable to climate change.
Speaking at the International Conference on Irrigation and Production Resilient to Climate Change, the Angolan diplomat said that only 6% of arable land in Africa is irrigated, which is extremely low compared to other continents such as Asia, where 37% of the land is irrigated.
The AU official recalled that the 2023 Agenda of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), approved in Maputo and adopted in January in Kampala, Uganda, emphasizes the importance of irrigation to increase productivity and intensify agriculture in Africa.
According to Sacko, the African Union developed the Continental Framework for the Development of Irrigation and Agricultural Water Management Practices in 2020 to provide typologies, policies and institutional development pathways for sustainable irrigation options on the continent.
To date, the diplomat said, three regional economic communities, namely the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic Community of West African States (EAC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have received support to develop their own frameworks based on this instrument.
According to her, in order to overcome this deficit, it is necessary to adopt the internalization of continental and regional irrigation development prescriptions in national agricultural investment plans, to align policies to facilitate small farmers' access to irrigation technologies, land and water rights.
The diplomat stressed the need to ensure a strong institutional, infrastructure and market support system, human capacity trained to operate modern irrigation systems, energy and water efficient, as well as to encourage the sharing of experiences among national irrigation actors, especially in small, affordable and environmentally friendly projects. FMA/ART/AMP
