Aligning Dutch food security policy with CAADP, focussing on smallholder farmers

As part of a series on the Comprehensive Africa’s Development Program (CAADP), FoodFIRST, in collaboration with International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), organised a policy dialogue (Vijverbergsessie) on 12 June 2025 in The Hague to discuss how future Dutch food security policy can be better aligned with Africa’s CAADP Agenda 2026–2035. The event, which featured Stephen Muchiri (Eastern Africa Farmers Federation), Khalid Bomba (Development Sovereignty Group), Duncan Williamson (IIED), and Timmo Gaasbeek (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), aimed to build cross-sector alliances beyond traditional government-to-government cooperation by engaging the “Dutch diamond” of government, knowledge institutions, the private sector, and civil society. A particular focus was placed on encouraging Dutch SMEs to contribute innovation, investment, and sustainable business models tailored to the needs of African smallholders, especially in fragile and conflict-affected areas. Through this dialogue and future sessions on CAADP, participants seek to move from policy statements to concrete actions that strengthen Africa’s local food systems.

Key Takeaways

• From Statements to Action: the event underscored the urgency of moving from high-level political declarations to practical, African-owned solutions that strengthen local food systems. CAADP’s evolution shows strong vision but weak implementation, new efforts must focus on execution, accountability, and local relevance.
• Institutional Innovation is Critical: Ethiopia’s ATA model showed the power of independent, apolitical institutions with cross-sector coordination and long-term vision. Replication elsewhere must consider local political economy and avoid displacing existing structures.
• SMEs as Drivers of Transformation: Dutch and African SMEs are essential for linking smallholders to markets, driving innovation, and building resilient food systems. However, they need tailored support, access to finance, and stronger, formalised partnerships with farmer organisations. Trade facilitation must go beyond missions and webinars, focusing instead on long-term ecosystem building.
• Dutch Policy Must Align and Collaborate: Dutch efforts should align with African frameworks like CAADP and invest in institutional capacity building. Support should be flexible, long-term, and rooted in mutual benefit, with an emphasis on listening to African partners and enabling their leadership.

Keynote speeches and respondents

Isabelle Vreeke, Team Lead on Food Security and Climate at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature welcomed attendees, highlighting its timeliness given recent policy developments in the Netherlands. She noted that in her policy letter former minister Klever has defined food security as one of three development aid priorities, alongside water and health, explicitly linking these to Dutch economic and commercial interests, as well as international security and migration. Despite a declining Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget, the budget for food security is increasing. However, she cautioned that Dutch policy could still change due to the recent fall of the government. The ministry of AFFN aims to engage across the “Dutch diamond”, knowledge institutions, the private sector, and civil society, particularly involving Dutch entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to bring innovation, investment, and expertise adapted to realities on the ground, especially in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

The event was presented as the first in a series of “food first dialogues” aiming to move beyond political statements towards tangible actions for strengthening Africa’s local food systems. The day’s programme would cover four key CAADP dimensions: strategy effectiveness, smallholder delivery, specific examples like Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), sustainability, resilience, and challenges of fragility and conflict.

Stephen Muchiri, CEO of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF),delivered a critical reflection on the evolution and future of Africa’s agricultural policy frameworks under CAADP. He explained that EAFF is a regional network of national farmer cooperatives and federations covering 10 East and Southern African countries, representing over 25 million smallholder farmers. He outlined that theMaputo Process (2003) marked the first continental agriculture strategy in Africa. Targets included ending hunger, allocating 10% of national budgets to agriculture, and achieving 6% annual sector growth. Key successes included strong stakeholder involvement, ownership, compact and investment plan development, World Bank funding via the GAFSP program, civil society oversight, and peer-to-peer country learning. Challenges included a struggle with actual budget disbursement (despite pronouncements), budget cuts to agriculture during emergencies, and failure by most countries (except Rwanda) to achieve the 10% budget allocation and 6% growth targets.

The Malabo Declaration (2014–2025), CAADP’s second phase, focused on impact and results, introducing biennial reviews. Yet Muchiri described this phase as lacking the enthusiasm and funding of Maputo. Non-state actor participation declined, and government reports became dominant. Ambitious objectives around transformation and accountability fell short amid fading momentum.

The Kampala Declaration (2026–2035) follows the Malabo process. A conclusion by the Islamic Development Bank Institute noted that while some progress was made, Malabo goals could not be achieved by 2025, and food deficits increased due to population growth. Key needs for the future include consistent funding, investment in infrastructure and technology, and increased research and development. Africa faces severe challenges from climate change, COVID-19, geopolitical issues, global inflation, and a ballooning food import bill (estimated at $50 billion). In 2024, Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 65% of people living under extreme hunger.

Looking ahead, the Kampala Declaration sets bold goals: increasing agri-food output by 45%, halving post-harvest losses, and tripling intra-African trade. It envisions $100 billion in investments, improved soil health, and climate resilience for 40% of households. However, Muchiri warned that current debt levels, weak policy environments, and political apathy may hinder delivery. He emphasized the need for domestic and international private sector engagement, particularly from actors like the Dutch, and called for investment-friendly reforms and long-term partnerships.

Muchiri outlined three phases for the Kampala declaration: increased awareness/internalisation of the document, development of compacts and investment plans, and biannual reviews. He stressed the need for political support and partnerships, especially with domestic private sector, to overcome challenges like debt distress. He also highlighted the opportunity to engage Dutch private sector for capital and skills. Recommendations included building sustainable partnerships with smallholder farmer associations, leveraging their expertise and aggregation capacity. For trade, he mentioned the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) signed by 44 countries, the African Bank’s African Payment and Settlement System, and cross-border infrastructure initiatives. He advocated for reducing Africa’s food import bill by using production and import data to identify policy issues or investment gaps, thereby building local production capacity by smallholder farmers. He also suggested scaling up successful farmer-level initiatives through various funding mechanisms like grants or equity. Stephen Muchiri concluded by stating that Africa’s fast-growing economies present immense demands for energy, food, infrastructure, and capital, urging continued investment and partnership.

Khalid Bomba, CEO and Managing Director of Development Sovereignty Group and former ATA CEO, focused on governance and institutional innovation, particularly Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), which was supported and funded by the Dutch government. He noted that while CAADP principles were adopted by over 50 African countries, and clear outcomes were established, no country is currently on track to meet targets. Common challenges include insufficient funding, shifting political priorities, policy inconsistency, and fragmented stakeholder inclusion. Ethiopia, like Rwanda, progressed well due to strong governance, accountability, active policy reform, and coordinated execution capacity, despite budgetary challenges. The ATA was created in 2009 by the Prime Minister to drive agricultural transformation beyond marginal changes. Its success was attributed to a few critical characteristics:

• High-level political support: reporting to a Transformation Council chaired by the Prime Minister
• Standalone institution with legal mandate: established by cabinet regulation
• Time-bound organisation (20-30 years): creating urgency with clear checkpoints
• Adaptive learning by design: a practical way of running the organisation
• Highly capable, hybrid staff: international and local staff, with a plan for full localisation.

The ATA conducted analytical studies to identify problems, directly implemented projects where capacity was lacking, supported other organisations, and used a matrix approach for programming, focusing on systemic interventions rather than just value chains. Results included high utilisation of analytical studies (nearly 80% used in policy or project design), 48 strategic projects reaching millions of farmers (e.g., digital extension system, satellite-based water/soil mapping), and a delivery unit that tripled the Ministry of Agriculture’s capacity. Systemic interventions included digital soil mapping, shallow groundwater mapping, cooperative capacity building, and a national hotline for farmers. The ATA also introduced a clustering approach for farmers to form production companies, improving service delivery and market access. FAO analysis showed the ATA contributed $1.7 billion to GDP on an investment of $50 million, an impressive return.

Bomba concluded by stating that an ATA-type organisation requires high-level political support, a clear sequencing and matrix structure, and flexibility from donors. He emphasised that such a model must be contextualised, acknowledge potential threats to existing ministries, bring new value, and evolve over time. For Dutch development assistance, he suggested focusing on systemic interventions and geographic areas that lead to sustainable, inclusive rural development, which increases trade opportunities, reduces migration, and enhances local security.

As respondent, Duncan Williamson, Food Systems Lead at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) discussed sustainability and the “just transition” in food systems. He stated that the traditional assumption of always being able to produce “more food” is proving false due to failing harvests, water issues, and changing trade dynamics. He stressed the need for equal partnerships where local actors lead implementation, moving beyond international NGOs dominating. Key issues to address include:

• Power dynamics: recognising and addressing power imbalances (government, financial, corporate, trade) that block change. He gave an example from West Africa where local fishing communities suffer due to industrial fishing for fish feed exported to Europe
• Policy support and long-term investment: projects need more than 2-3 years, sometimes decades, to show benefits and build resilience, yet also need quick scaling
• Collecting data: crucial for informing policy, investments, trade deals, and resource management across areas like soil, water, and imports
• Finance: moving from fragmented subsidies and tax breaks to systemic thinking about finance, identifying where money is spent well or badly, and how it can be used better
• Role of SMEs: ensuring their voice is heard and they have market access, as they will be “the engine for change”. He also emphasised integrating land-based and aquatic food systems.

Equally as a respondent, Timmo Gaasbeek, Policy Coordinating Officer at the International Green Growth department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, affirmed that CAADP is an African-owned and African-developed plan, with solutions needing to come from within Africa. He noted that food insecurity in Africa is concentrated in fragile and conflict-affected areas, posing challenges for large-scale food security programming. This aligns with Dutch policy’s interest in contributing to stability. Dutch policy focuses particularly on small farmers and healthy diets, looking beyond stable crops. Structural challenges like climate change, population growth, land degradation, and urbanisation require a long-term perspective. A risk in conflict contexts is that project periods shorten, focusing only on immediate needs rather than bigger pictures. Economic difficulties for the private sector and farmers in these contexts, due to theft and access issues, necessitate focusing on affordable, locally suitable technologies. He observed that agricultural innovation tends to concentrate in stable countries, neglecting areas where solutions are most needed. He advocated for risk minimisation, resilience, and locally-working solutions, noting that regional governance and statistics can be crucial when national governance is challenged, as West Africa, for example, is a surplus-producing region in roots and tubers, even if not in grain.

Panel discussion

Nicole Metz from the Netherlands Food Partnership facilitated the panel discussion, including the Q&A with the panelists. She emphasized that the dialogue aimed to move beyond high-level frameworks to formulate concrete action perspectives for a broad range of stakeholders, including farmers’ organizations, civil society, research institutions, the private sector, and embassies. Metz highlighted the importance of rooting these perspectives in effective, ethical strategies and ensuring that the needs of smallholder farmers and local food systems remained central. 

During the discussion with the audience Khalid Bomba:

• Emphasised the importance of tailor-made approaches for Dutch SMEs engaging in African food systems. The value chain, agroecology, and local context should determine entry points.
• Highlighted Ethiopia’s model of agricultural transformation through the commercialisation of smallholder farmers, arguing that subsistence farming traps people in poverty. Instead, specialisation and market participation should be the goal.
• Stressed that institutional models like ATA-type organisations can only work if there’s political consensus and the body remains apolitical.
• Pointed to the political economy as a more significant challenge than technical content when building institutional reforms.
• Criticised reliance on high-level declarations alone, emphasising that the real challenge lies in execution, particularly at the sub-national level. This requires detailed planning, clear responsibilities, and sustained resourcing.

In that same discussion Stephen Muchiri:

• Underlined the need for formalising farmer organisations and private sector associations to enable structured engagement and information pipelines.
• Cited the difficulty African farmers face accessing European markets, which he described as “oligopolistic”. Capacity-building and “hand-holding” are needed to meet required standards.
• Advocated for aggregation of smallholders to overcome the limits of farm size and turn them into meaningful actors in trade and policy processes.
• Promoted co-creation and the importance of indigenous knowledge, paired with science, to develop locally adapted solutions.
• Reaffirmed EAFF’s support for farmer-managed seed systems, noting their role in resilience and food security despite regulatory and quality challenges.
• Emphasised that the Dutch government must clearly communicate its policy intentions to African partners and work within existing frameworks like CAADP, not against them.
• Called for long-term investments in human capital and institutional partnerships, referencing the Netherlands’ historical role in African development.

Wheareas Timmo Gaasbeek:

• Advocated for a “double focus”: promoting transformation of agriculture for growing urban populations while also supporting household food security in fragile and resource-poor farming communities.
• Recognised that many small farms (e.g., in Rwanda) are too small to be food self-sufficient, requiring different support strategies.
• Emphasised that Dutch cooperation must be context-sensitive, citing Sudan as a case where strategies must vary between stable and conflict areas.
• Suggested that Dutch creativity lies in collaborative problem-solving, working alongside communities instead of pushing pre-designed solutions.
• Confirmed past Dutch involvement in infrastructure (e.g., feeder roads) in Rwanda, while noting this is not always generalisable.

Panelist final recommendations for Dutch cooperation with Africa

Invited by the facilitator the panelists offered their final recommendations for Dutch development assistance and cooperation with Africa.

Duncan Williamson
Recommended that the Netherlands view its food security engagement in Africa as part of its own resilience strategy.Heurged the Dutch government to listen first, to farmers, cooperatives, and local systems, before designing support or funding mechanisms.And advised that these insights should guide trade, aid, and multilateral engagement, ensuring alignment with ground realities.

Khalid Bomba
Recommended that Dutch support for African countries should be linked to “institutional capacity building,” for example, helping ministries of agriculture or agencies like ATA achieve specific targets. He stressed that funding drives priorities, and consistent funding for institutional capacity will ensure accountability.

Stephen Muchiri
Emphasised five key recommendations for the Dutch government. First, it is essential to clearly communicate the new policy to African partners to ensure mutual understanding of goals and expectations. Second, rather than introducing new systems, the Netherlands should recognise and align with existing African-led frameworks such as CAADP. Third, there needs to be flexibility from the Dutch side to genuinely align with CAADP processes. Fourth, while the current Dutch policy remains largely “Dutch looking”, focused on institutional benefits for the Netherlands—it is important to articulate and acknowledge the trade-offs involved and identify outcomes that serve both sides. Finally, long-term investment in human resources and sustained partnerships is essential, building on the Netherlands’ historical presence and deep-rooted experience in Africa.

Implications for Dutch Food Security Policy

• Mutual Benefit and Learning: The Dutch government should see its engagement as a means of building its own food security and resilience by actively listening to and learning from African partners. This collaborative approach can inform global food systems.
• African-Driven Capacity Building: Dutch support should focus on institutional capacity building within African countries, providing funding geared towards specific, African-driven targets to ensure priorities are met and accountability is fostered.
• Clarity, Alignment, and Flexibility:
  • The Dutch government needs to clearly communicate and ensure understanding of its new policy to African partners.
  • It is crucial to recognise and align with existing African policy frameworks like CAADP rather than imposing new systems.
  • Partnerships should be flexible and “win-win,” with clear mutual benefits and trade-offs understood by all parties.
• Long-term Investment: There is a need for long-term human resource and financial investment to build sustained partnerships, moving beyond short-term funding cycles. Dutch economic and commercial interests should be balanced with the benefits and trade-offs for African partners.