The Africa Agricultural Market Programme (AAMP):

The Africa Agricultural Market Programme (AAMP) was launched by the COMESA Ministers of Agriculture at their 5th meeting in Mahe, Seychelles in March 2008. AAMP is one of the key programmes within the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) Pillar 2. AAMP is a regional programme to support enhanced access to regional markets, trade, and private sector participation in agriculture. The programme is a partnership between the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the World Bank.

AAMP will enhance regional capacity, policy dialogue, and coordination on agricultural input and output markets through a series of policy seminars, training, and analytical work. The programme currently covers both COMESA member and non member countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The programme will initially run till December 2010.

AAMP has three core objectives:

1. strengthen the institutional capacity of COMESA to implement a regional marketing and trade program for food staples and inputs in support of the CAADP process;
2. enhance knowledge of national decision makers by providing information and analysis concerning the issues facing agricultural input and output markets for major food staples and inputs; and
3. create a regional network for dialogue, ideas, and exchange in the area of agricultural input and output markets between concerned ministries and the private sector.

The policy and training series will cover food staples production, agriculture inputs and outputs, trade and marketing, and risk management. The first policy and training event will be in December 2008 in Nairobi on the topic of “Trade in Food Staples in Eastern and Southern Africa: The Role of Intra-Regional Trade in Price Stability and Food Security”.