ZIMBABWE has failed to domesticate the Kampala Declaration, which provides a comprehensive food security network at a time when the country faces food challenges yearly.
The Kampala Declaration on Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), adopted by African Union heads of State in 2025, represents the continent’s latest framework for agricultural modernisation.
With recurring droughts and global supply chain shocks, this shift could redefine the nation’s agricultural destiny, agricultural experts said.
Agriculture minister Anxious Masuka, however, agreed that Zimbabwe is behind time in domesticating the Kampala Declaration.
He said Zimbabwe was moving away from the 2014 Malabo Declaration’s primary focus on hunger and nutrition.
“Zimbabwe is domesticating the 2025 CAADP Kampala Declaration into the Agriculture Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy under the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2),” Masuka said.
“This marks a shift from Malabo’s focus on food security to a broader value-chain and agro-industrialisation approach that treats agriculture as a business.”
He revealed that Zimbabwe had taken proactive steps by embedding all six CAADP objectives in 10 distinct pillars under NDS2, giving the country a running start.
“This gives us a stronger foundation to accelerate agricultural transformation and rural industrialisation,” Masuka said.
He outlined five guiding principles for the domestication drive that include a value-chain approach to prioritise aggregation, beneficiation, and value addition to capture more earnings from commodities.
“Our ultimate goal is to transform Zimbabwe from a regional food basket to an agro-industrial hub by leveraging our strategic location, favourable climate, rich soils and abundant talent,” Masuka said.
The CAADP Kampala Declaration is the African Union’s latest framework aimed at accelerating agricultural transformation, food systems development and rural industrialisation across the continent.-newday
