Enhancing Agricultural Performance – An Inside Job

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In Zambia, the European Commission is set to play a secondary role, supporting the government’s Performance Enhancement Programme in agriculture and livestock. The driving force of the programme is to come from the ministries themselves.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Zambian economy and as such, offers great potential for poverty reduction. However, the creation of a favourable environment for agricultural productivity has so far eluded the Zambian government.

In a bid to stimulate growth in the agriculture sector, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and new Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries decided to take a critical look at the capacity development challenges they face, with a Participatory Self-Assessment Workshop.

A team of EC-funded consultants collaborated with the ministries, to prepare a Performance Enhancement Programme (PEP) for implementation by their staff. The EC has committed to support this programme with technical cooperation.

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For Julius Shawa, who heads the Policy and Planning Department that serves both ministries, the key to success is clear.

“We really need a very strong ownership. We need strong leadership. And we also need involvement and participation at various levels of the ministries,” said Mr Shawa in an interview. Regarding the EC’s technical cooperation, he said: “we have to look at it as an input, or rather as a means to facilitate what we, internally, have already started.”

Mr Shawa added that the Zambian ministries are looking for innovative forms of TC that are demand driven and enhance the existing capacity of the two ministries. To listen to the full audio interview with Mr Shawa, click on the icon below.

Julius Shawa, Agriculture Interview Zambia

In Zambia, the agriculture sector employs around some 73 percent of the workforce, according to government figures from 2005. Despite a good climate, abundant land and labour and plenty of water, less than 20 percent of arable land is cultivated, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The EC support to this vital sector is going through its final formulation stage in April. The identification fiche has already evoked favourable comments from the Quality Support Group in Brussels because it seeks to adhere to the basic principles of the TC reform.

The document recognises that “while technical cooperation will be inevitable for a number of activities, the Ministries would be fully involved in drafting the terms of reference, evaluating candidates and guiding their work; regional expertise will be attracted as much as possible.”