CAADP was adopted by African Union (AU) member states in 2003 as a policy framework to accelerate agriculture led growth, while elevating improved food security and nutrition as well as increasing incomes in Africa’s largely agriculture-based economies. CAADP is framed by seven ambitious goals to be achieved by 2025. In 2014, all African heads of state re-committed to these targets and principles in the Malabo Declaration (see box to the right). Although CAADP is driven largely by public sector institutions within countries, non-state actors (NSAs) at national and subnational levels play an important role in helping to inform plans, generate data, drive adaptive management, and improve programs to achieve these goals at the continental level.

The Malabo Declaration emphasizes the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships and alliances, especially with NSAs, to contribute to policy development, implementation, and monitoring of the continental framework. These alliances are necessary because CAADP goals are ambitious and cannot be achieved by the public sector alone. In fact, the vision for CAADP as a country-led transformation agenda relies on strong and collaborative partnerships between public and private sectors – between governments, civil societies, farmers, pastoralists, and agribusinesses – for collective impact.

During the official launch of the 15th CAADP Partnership Platform meeting in Nairobi by Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto, and H.E. Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, the African Union’s Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture (AU DREA), AU DREA and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) launched the a new communications toolkit for CAADP advocates, leaders, and focal points entitled, “Catalyzing Action & Agricultural Transformation in Africa: Understanding CAADP & the Biennial Review”. The toolkit, supported by Africa Lead, was launched alongside of the new African Union Knowledge Compendium on the Malabo Domestication, which was supported by GIZ.