Non-State Actors in the country have advocated for increased budget allocation by the government to the agricultural sector as per the Malabo declaration.
Agricultural policy programming
The stakeholders made the call in Dodoma during the virtual meeting “How the media can strengthen accountability and use of Biennial Review result”.
The meeting, organized by ActionAid Tanzania and its partners, with support from the African Union, aims to develop a common advocacy agenda for the elaboration of agricultural policies, fueled by concrete data. These data also indicate the pace of progress towards the implementation of the Malabo Commitments.
An advantageous dissemination of data
The meeting welcomed physical and virtual participants from all AU member states, covered under ActionAid’s Scaling up Public Investment in Agriculture projects in Tanzania.
The demand, coming particularly from female entrepreneurs from different regions, under the auspices of Small-holder Women Farmers Forum, is that the government push for better public financing for the agriculture sector in the country.
Participants also invited the government to develop strategies for a targeted use of agricultural research data in order to distribute them locally to support workers in the sector.
Malabo Declaration
The requests therefore proved to be in line with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme. And they reveal the need to organize an action plan to transform the agricultural sector in order to meet the objectives of the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025. In particular, the Declaration requires African countries to allocate at least 10% of their national budget to the primary sector.
The role of the media
To achieve these objectives, the contribution of the media will be strategic. In fact, they are responsible for creating awareness and monitoring the results of Agricultural programs of their countries to ensure that reported data conforms with reality on ground.
Source: dailynews.co.tz
