While the agriculture sector employs over 60% of the working population and is regarded as the backbone for a significant proportion of countries on the continent, weak performance was reported; partly attributed to low levels of mechanisation, weak value chains, and heavy reliance on unpredictable rainfall. Notwithstanding the weak performance, some Member States have made concerted efforts towards increasing agricultural productivity.

It is noteworthy that the overall assessment of this goal is affected by inadequate data on the two indicators, namely agriculture total factor productivity and percentage of small-scale farmers graduating into commercial farming.