Assembly/AU/Decl.2(XIII) Rev.1 Page 1 SIRTE DECLARATION ON INVESTING IN AGRICULTURE FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND FOOD SECURITY Doc. ASSEMBLY/AU/12 (VIII) WE, the Heads of State and Government of the African Union, meeting at our Thirteenth Ordinary Session in Sirte, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1 to 3 July 2009, RECALLING within the context of the theme of the Thirteenth AU Summit, Africa’s collective responsibility and commitment to advance Africa’s Agriculture with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) as its framework for bringing about the required institutional and policy reforms, capacity development and increased investments thereby enhanced agricultural performance with direct impact on food security and socio-economic growth; COMMENDING Member States advancing in embracing CAADP implementation and the facilitating support being provided by the Commission, the NEPAD Secretariat, Regional Economic Communities and development partners; WELCOMING the strong support to and alignment with the CAADP agenda by a growing number of bilateral and multilateral development agencies; AWARE and CONCERNED that hunger is a drain on economic development; a threat to global security; a barrier to human dignity and to the improvement of the standard of living of the people, and therefore every effort at national, regional, continental including at global levels should be made as a matter of urgency to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on reducing hunger in Africa; ACKNOWLEDGING the importance of proactive measures and interventions to increase financing for Africa’s Agriculture and continue to improve sector policies for accelerated economic growth and the attainment of the continent’s food security targets; AWARE that smallholder friendly value-chain development and access to markets and to financial services should be key elements to enhancing financial sustainability and growth of the agriculture sectors and related wealth creation; MINDFUL of the fact that climate variability and climate change is and will be key factor to the agricultural development agenda and that it is imperative for Africa at all levels to raise productivity and improve resilience in agricultural systems; NOTING that land degradation undermines food-security; increases the vulnerability of African economies to climate variability and change while, on the other hand sustainable Adopted by the Thirteenth Ordinary Session of the Assembly in Sirte, Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on 3 July 2009