Agriculture is the major economic activity in the East African Region. On 20th October 2016, Member of Parliament of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) took a proactive role as the regional parliament to push for the EAC region to ensure the Malabo Declaration domestication for ensured realization of it 7 commitments including allocation of at least 10% of annual national budgets to agriculture. This bold and strong resolution by EALA was highly hailed by small-scale farmers to urge EAC Member States to domesticate the Malabo and speedily implement it before 2025.
Small-scale farmer leaders from 5 East African Countries paid a courtesy visit to the Speaker of the EALA Rt. Hon. Ngoga Martin on 30th October 2018. During this meeting that happened in Arusha, Tanzania at the EAC headquarters, small scale farmers requested for update on the implementation of the Zanzibar resolution on Malabo, requested the speaker to present the petition agenda to the coming EAC Heads of State Summit and also requested the EALA to co-organise the high-level official ministerial meeting on the EAC agriculture budgets in 2019/20.
The National Chairperson of ESAFF Uganda Mr. Baliraine Hakim told the Speaker that ESAFF is collecting one million signatures for the farmers’ petition to the Heads of State calling for the disbursement of 10% of the national budget to the agriculture sector. He also presented the findings about the poor allocation of the member states to the agriculture sector.
The Speaker of the EALA Rt. Hon. Ngoga Martin noted the poor performance of the sector and in response said that he is in support of the farmers’ petition and promised to present the agenda of the petition to the council of ministers and the Heads of state.
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