Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: performance and lessons. Angola

The Malabo Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods is a set of goals that were adopted by Heads of State and Government of the African Union in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (AUC 2014). To translate the seven Malabo commitments into results, a call for action was made by the Heads of State and Governments, by calling upon the AU Commission and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, in collaboration with partners, to initiate a review process to be conducted on a biennial basis starting 2017, with an objective of tracking, measuring, and reporting progress towards achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025. Three Biennial Reviews (BR) have been conducted—the inaugural BR in 2017, the second BR in 2019, and the third and most recent BR in 2021. This brief draws on the third BR report to summarize the performance of Angola toward meeting the Malabo Declaration commitments across the three BR cycles, highlights challenges and lessons from the third BR, and outlines policy and programmatic measures required for Angola to meet the Malabo Declaration commitment targets by 2025. The third BR indicates that Angola is not on track to achieve any of the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025. Despite the improvements in performance between the first and second BRs, the overall scores for Angola for all three BR rounds were below the benchmark scores. A key recommendation from the analysis is for Angola to enhance public financial management to improve the quality of public agricultural expenditure and to promote planning of public investments in the agricultural sector, including donor-funded projects. This should be done in close partnership with key stakeholders in the agricultural sector, resulting in an increased allocation of public resources to the sector

Dynamics of the fertilizer value chain in Mozambique

Mozambique is characterized by low agricultural productivity, which is associated with low use of yield-enhancing agricultural inputs. Fertilizer application rate averaged 5.7 kg ha-1 in Mozambique during the period 2006 to 2015, considerably low by regional targets, yet constraints that affect fertilizer use have not been thoroughly investigated. This study examined the constraints on fertilizer value chains in Mozambique to contribute to fertilizer supply chain strengthening. We used a combination of multivariate analysis and descriptive methods. Our findings indicate that fertilizer use has both demand and supply constraints. Key demand-side constraints include liquidity challenges, limited awareness about the benefits of using fertilizer, and low market participation, while the main supply-side constraints include high transaction costs, limited access to finance, and lack of soil testing results and corresponding fertilizer recommendations by soil type and crop uptake. These results suggest that scaling up the input subsidy program through vouchers (either paper-based vouchers or e-vouchers) with demonstration plots and effective targeting could drive up smallholders’ demand for fertilizer and fertilizer supply by strengthening a sustainable network of wholesalers and retailers. This would likely boost agricultural productivity