Second Biennial Review report highlights urgent need to accelerate progress toward achieving Malabo Declaration goals by 2025

In the 2014 Malabo Declaration, African leaders pledged to conduct a continent-wide Biennial Review (BR) to monitor and report on progress in achieving seven commitments, including ending hunger and halving poverty by 2025. The 2019 BR Report and Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard (AATS), launched at the 33rd African Union (AU) Summit Feb. 9-10, show that although African countries are making progress toward achieving Malabo goals, the rate of progress has slowed.

Based on recommendations of the 2017 inaugural BR, the African Union Commission (AUC) and its technical partners including the IFPRI-led Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) made a number of important improvements to the second BR. These include the addition of four new indicators on food insecurity and food safety, refinements of definitions and measurement of seven existing indicators, organization of continental level training on BR guidelines and tools for AU member states early in the process, and introduction of the eBiennial Review (eBR). The eBR, developed by ReSAKSS in partnership with AUC, is a web-based data entry and management tool to improve the efficiency of data entry and access.

Photo credit: African Union Commission