Nairobi: IGAD Executives Call for Increased Agriculture Budget as Per the Kampala Declaration
- Nairobi is hosting a four-day IGAD meeting bringing together parliamentarians, ambassadors, and development partners from eight member states
- IGAD officials want increased budgetary allocations to agriculture to boost food security and rural transformation
- Participants are expected to endorse the Kampala Declaration 2026–2035 CAADP Strategy, aiming to integrate three key areas
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Elijah Ntongai, an editor at TUKO.co.ke, has over four years of financial, business, and technology research and reporting experience, providing insights into Kenyan, African, and global trends.
Nairobi is hosting a high-level meeting of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) parliamentarians, ambassadors, and development partners.
Source: Twitter
The meeting is focused on strengthening leadership, oversight, and advocacy for resilient and inclusive agrifood systems in IGAD member states, which include Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.
The four-day executive training, which began on Monday, July 28, brings together representatives from IGAD member states to review progress and push for greater public investment in agriculture.
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Budget allocations for agriculture
Speaking on behalf of IGAD Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu, Mohi Tohami, IGAD’s Director for Cooperation and Regional Integration, emphasised the need for accelerated action to address hunger, poverty, and climate challenges across the region.
Delegates are reviewing the 4th Biennial Review of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which showed most African countries are off-track in meeting the 2025 Malabo Declaration targets that commit governments to allocate at least 10% of national budgets to agriculture to boost productivity and enhance food security.
“To improve performance and build resilience, we must increase agriculture budgets, strengthen regional coordination, and empower parliamentarians to domesticate regional commitments and engage ambassadors in harmonising cross-border policies and investments. and ambassadors to drive policy reforms,” said the IGAD Director of Agriculture on behalf of Workneh.
He urged lawmakers to mobilise funding, enact supportive legislation, and promote climate-smart solutions for smallholder farmers to boost productivity among the member states.
Source: Twitter
IGAD Parliamentarians Working Group on Agrifood Systems
The meeting in Nairobi will also launch the IGAD Parliamentarians Working Group on Agrifood Systems.
This is a new platform for joint advocacy, accountability, and policy innovation to improve investment flows and harmonise cross-border agricultural policies.
The Nairobi forum comes against the backdrop of the 2024 African Union Assembly, which declared that the continent was off-track in achieving the Malabo goals. The latest CAADP review revealed that only 19 of 49 reporting countries were on course to meet the goals.
The review cited policy gaps, weak intra-African trade in agricultural goods, and underfunding as key obstacles to achieving the continent’s food security and rural transformation agenda.
Kampala Declaration
Participants in the Nairobi forum are expected to endorse the 2026–2035 CAADP Strategy under the Kampala Declaration.
The declaration seeks to integrate agriculture, nutrition, climate resilience, and economic development into a holistic food systems approach.
"Let us turn the Kampala Declaration, the FSRP, and this new working group into engines of transformation," Tohami said.
IGAD reaffirmed its commitment to working with member states, the African Union, and partners like the World Bank to turn policy commitments into tangible outcomes that strengthen food systems governance and build resilience across Eastern Africa.
How much did Kenya allocate to agriculture?
Earlier, Kenya’s National Treasury outlined its KSh 4.2 trillion budget for the 2025/2026 financial year.
Notably, only KSh 78 billion was allocated to fund agriculture, rural, and urban development to boost food security and improve rural livelihoods.
The education sector was earmarked to receive the largest share of KSh 701 billion to cater for teacher salaries, capitation for schools, HELB loans, and scholarships.
Infrastructure developments were allocated KSh 501 billion to enhance roads, ICT, and energy networks, while the health sector received KSh 136 billion to strengthen healthcare services.
Proofreading by Mercy Nyambura, copy editor at TUKO.co.ke.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
