Keynote Address by H.E. Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace
Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture
African Union Commission at the CGIAR Development Dialogues

Faculty House, Columbia University
New York, USA
25 September 2014

Our Host, Distinguished CEO of the CGIAR Consortium, Dr. Frank Rijsberman,
Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nigeria, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina,
Honourable Mr. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Minister for the Environment, Peru, and UNFCCC COP-20 President,
Distinguished President of IFAD, Dr. Kanayo Nwanze,
Distinguished Participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased and honored to have the opportunity to address you at this Development Dialogue on "Delivering Solutions to Realize the Sustainable Development Goals and Global Climate Agenda." I wish to commend the CGIAR for organizing this important event and thank you for inviting, through me, the African Union Commission to it.

Indeed, this Dialogue gives me an opportunity to share with you the African Union's vision of the agriculture future we want and what this implies for the agricultural research and development agenda and partnerships. This vision is crafted as an integral part of the bigger Agenda 2063 Vision of The Africa We Want. It is reflected in the theme of the AU 2014 Year of Agriculture and Food Security in Africa, which is "Transforming Africa's agriculture for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods through capturing opportunities for inclusive growth and sustainable development."

Four defining features of the AU's vision for agriculture clearly help set the research priorities for Africa's agricultural transformation agenda, to which AU Heads of State and Government committed in their Malabo Summit Declaration of June 2014.

First, it is a future of a modern and productive agriculture anchored in a solid science and knowledge foundation.

Second, this future is one of competitive food and agriculture systems, which run through all dimensions of value chains to meet the fast-growing and diversifying agrifood demands of intra-African markets and increasingly supply a growing and exigent global market.

Third, the agriculture future we want would end hunger and ensure food and nutrition security on a self-reliance basis.

Fourth, the future we want is one of resilient production and livelihoods systems.

Attached to this vision are key targets that agricultural research and development should contribute to meet over the next 10 years, that is by 2025. These include, among others:

• At least doubling current agricultural productivity levels, modernizing agricultural production systems, with special attention to smallholders and women, and making agriculture attractive and profitable for the continent's youth;

• Halving the current levels of post-harvest losses;

• Developing strategic agrifood commodities value chains in a way that strongly links farmers, especially smallholders and women, to markets;

• Facilitating preferential entry and participation for women and youth in gainful and attractive agribusiness opportunities and creating job opportunities for at least 30% of the youth in agricultural value chains;

• Tripling intra-African agrifood trade;

• Ending hunger and eliminating child under-nutrition by curbing stunting to 10% and underweight to 5%; and

• Making at least 30% of Africa's farm, pastoral and fisher households resilient to climate change and weather-related risks.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

These are strong points for a demand-driven agricultural research and development agenda aimed at transforming Africa's agriculture through sustaining the momentum of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). Africa's agricultural science community is fully committed to this agenda through the Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa (S3A) that our leaders adopted through the Malabo Declaration. A Science Agenda that was developed under the leadership of FARA, in close collaboration with the AUC and NPCA, and with the support of the CGIAR, IFAD and other partner institutions to which we are grateful.

Cutting across entire value chains of the agrifood systems, this science agenda encompasses research themes that connect science with the needs and opportunities in Africa's agriculture. It thus addresses critical issues of productivity and sustainable intensification of production systems, biodiversity and natural resource management, food systems and value chains, market access and trade, adaptation and resilience to climate variability and change, and harnessing modern genetics and genomics, biosciences, and ICTs.

In taking Africa's agricultural transformation agenda forward, we commit to enhancing the capacities of our institutions across the continent to deliver on the related science and transform research findings and innovations into applicable models and tools for African farmers, especially smallholders and women. As Dr. Norman Borlaug used to say, we need to ‘take it to the farmer.’ And, beyond the farmer, we need to take research to the Africa's agro-industry and agribusiness actors.

To do so, we need to build the capacity African rural communities and empower them. We shall attach special attention to investing in women who are at the core of the continent's agrifood systems. We should bridge the gaps between research and policy making. And we shall strive to build an effective education-research-extension 'knowledge triangle' through adequate reforms and support to our educational institutions as well so as to build a critical mass of professionals to advance the science agenda for agricultural transformation.

For sure, this agenda is challenging. But it is commensurate with our ambitions for agricultural transformation in Africa. We are committed to delivering on Africa's ownership and leadership of this agenda. At the same time, we are mindful of the critical value of, and need for partnerships in agricultural research and development. We, therefore, call on the international/global agricultural science community in general, and the CGIAR in particular, to strongly partner with Africa's national, regional and continental agricultural research systems in delivering on our agricultural transformation. I know we can count on your dedicated support.

Thank you.