The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) was specially formulated to stimulate the necessary reforms in the agriculture sector and bring agriculture toward the support of socio-economic growth and sustainable development. CAADP is Africa 's policy framework for agriculture and agriculture-led development. It is an integral part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). It is within the NEPAD context that CAADP is able to link and align with development objectives in other sectors, thereby providing for comprehensive and harmonised development policies, strategies and programmes. In CAADP, Africa believes that agriculture and the food industry can be the engine for growth in Africa 's largely agrarian economies, with tangible and sustainable impact on improving food security and nutrition, contributing to wealth and job creation, empowering women and enabling the expansion of exports.

CAADP 's vision is to maximise the contribution of agriculture to achieving the ambition of a self-reliant and productive Africa and delivering economic growth and sustainable development for its people as well as playing its full part on the world stage. The goal for the sector is an agricultural-led development that eliminates hunger, and reduces poverty and food insecurity thereby opening the way for an expansion for exports and putting _the continent on a higher economic growth path within an overall strategy of sustainable development and preservation of the natural resource base. CAADP is also a practical instrument and framework by which Africa hopes to drive efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

CAADP sets two core targets in pursuit of its vision. The following two targets profoundly reflect both tangible measure of what needs to be achieved and intangible value related to transformational objectives:

• Countries commit to raise the annual agricultural productivity to a minimum of six per cent by 2015
• Countries commit to increase public investments in agriculture to at least 10 per cent of their annual national budgets by 2015

CAADP is one of the priority areas of NEPAD in which the NEPAD principles and values are expected to be translated into and guide action. The following NEPAD principles and values are central to embracing and achieving both short to medium and long term objectives within the CAADP vision:

• Transparency and accountability driven by peer-pressure based on shared vision and collective responsibility to the greater good in enabling Africa to realise sustainable development and economic growth
• Local ownership and responsibility
• Partnerships and collective responsibility including respect for mutual value and commitment to mutually rewarding partnership principles. This including collaborating at optimal levels in synergies and complementarities as well as clean and responsible multi-sectorialism
• Inclusiveness also relating to multi-sectorialism, synergies and complementarities as well as subsidiarity appreciating that advancing an agriculture agenda is more than a single-sector issue