OPENING REMARKS DURING THE LAUCH OF PLATFORM FOR AGRICULTURAL POLICY ANALYSIS AND COODINATION (PAPAC) HELD AT THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE FOOD SECURITY AND COOPERATIVE ON 26TH FEBRUARY, 2015
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Permanent Secretary, Madam Sophia Kaduma, I take this opportunity to welcome you all to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperative and specifically to the launching event of Platform for Agriculture Policy Analysis and Coordination (PAPAC) project.
As we all know, Tanzania has committed to implement the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) by signing the CAADP compact in July 2010 and thereafter developed the Tanzania Agricultural and Food Security Investment Plan (TAFSIP) in 2011. CAADP is Africa’s policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security & nutrition, economic growth & prosperity for all.
To facilitate effective implementation of TAFSIP in line with CAADP principles, Tanzania also committedto strengthening national capacity in order to have evidence based planning, policy making, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) for mutual accountability. PAPAC,which we are going to launch today,seeks to establish a platform to support these functions.The platform has been designed in line with the priorities of the agriculture sector stipulated in TAFSIP and in the coming Agricultural Sector Development Program II (ASDP II) which emphasize the need to address policy issues for a competitive agricultural sector.
The key activities of PAPAC are expected to deliver support to the broader Tanzania Agricultural and Food Security Investment Plan (TAFSIP). Specifically,PAPAC will support the implementation of TAFSIP, monitoring and evaluating agriculture sector performance and investments, strategic analysis to fill knowledge gaps, knowledge management, communications and policy dialogueand capacity strengthening to improve the quality of agricultural policy planning, implementation and M&E. The key stakeholders of PAPAC, forming a network of partners, include agriculture sector line ministries (ASLMs), the National Bureau of Statistics, research institutes, universities, policy analysis think tanks and networks, and other local organizations.
Therefore, PAPAC will bring together key actors on the supply and demand sides for generating agricultural policy knowledge; PAPAC is intended to be a function, and not an institution, coordinated by a secretariat to be hosted in the Directorate of Policy and Planning of the Ministry of Agriculture Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC).
We appreciate the support in the form of a startup grantfrom USAID/Tanzania, the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) for Eastern and Central Africa and Michigan State University (MSU) who have provided technical support to the establishment of PAPAC. We invite other partners to join in this initiative aimedat creating a favorable policy environment for agriculture sector in Tanzania. On behalf of the Agricultural Lead Ministries, we are committed and we will collaborate to make sure that PAPAC achieves its intended objectives. With these few remarks, I declare that the PLATFORM FOR AGRICULTURAL POLICY ANALYSIS AND COODINATION (PAPAC) is officially launched.