The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme as a Collective Institution

he Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Pro‐ gramme (CAADP) was designed to promote the transfor‐ mation of agriculture in SSA.Under this program, African coun‐ tries have committed to seek development through agriculture‐ led growth by targeting at least 6 percent growth and by allocat‐ ing about 10 percent of government budget to the sector. In re‐ turn, the donor community has implicitly committed to increase their support to agriculture using the CAADP mechanism, while at the same time coordinating their activities in this sector and aligning them with the CAADP priorities set by the African coun‐ tries themselves. The ownership of agriculture‐based growth strategies by African countries is expected to make donor in‐ vestments more effective than previous aid to the sector. Many donors (the term is used here to include bilateral and multilat‐ eral donors as well as international financial institutions) are al‐ ready supporting countries and regional organizations under the framework of CAADP implementation. CAADP has significantly contributed to the enthusiasm around the prospects for an African green revolution by moving policy discourse and spending away from its focus on industrial development toward agriculture‐based development. More than any other initiative, CAADP has received political endorsement and continent‐wide attention as well as the commitment of the countries’ own resources. However, the program is not without its critics and the reactions of governments have varied from enthusiasm to reluctance. Against this background, this paper aims to analyze the potentials and challenges of CAADP, and to draw conclusions concerning the future of the program. In par‐ ticular, the paper examines whether CAADP can be expected to increase investments in agriculture and the conditions under which it may be expected to take place. The paper uses the theo‐ ry of collective reputation (Tirole 1996; Winfree and McCluskey 2008) and the theory of common‐pool resources and collective action (Olson 1965 and Ostrom 1990), to examine the incentives of countries in this collective action effort. OBJECTIVES AND DESIGN OF CAADP The objective of CAADP is to help African countries achieve high‐ er levels of economic growth through agricultural development, thus eliminating hunger, reducing poverty and food insecurity, enabling expansion of exports, and supporting environmental resilience (NEPAD 2008). The program seeks to guide country strategies and investments, encourage regional peer learning and review, and facilitate greater alignment and harmonization. CAADP recommends four “pillars”, continent‐wide entry points for investment and action, around which agricultural strategies should be developed: These are: