Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
The 5th International Conference of AAAE will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 23 – 26 September 2016 under the theme “Transforming Smallholder Agriculture in Africa: The Role of Policy and Governance”. The choice of theme has been motivated by the fact that the renewed efforts by most African governments in recent times to commit to supporting agriculture in order to reduce poverty and increase wealth among smallholder farmers are being hindered by a number of challenges not least how effectively to implement sound evidence-based policy reforms within vibrant complex political economies. African governments are aware of the evidence suggesting that GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in reducing poverty than GDP growth of other sectors hence their efforts to forge agricultural transformation.
The conference will attract the participation of agricultural economists from academia, industry, government, non-governmental organizations, and the farming communities. These are people who drive policy prescriptions and implementation in their various countries. Many of the African countries to be represented at this conference subscribe to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), whose overall goal is to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty through agricultural transformation. The countries, in their development blueprints have adopted the four CAADP pillars which include extending the area under sustainable land management, improving rural infrastructure and trade-related capacities for market access, increasing food supply and reducing hunger, and increasing spending on agricultural research, technology dissemination and adoption.
The conference is expected to attract about 450 – 500 delegates from around the world.