It was attended by about 200 participants drawn from 18 countries in Africa, development partners, NGOs, farmers associations, research institutions, regional economic commissions, regional organizations, and Lead Institutions for CAADP Pillars including FARA.
Speaking at the opening session, Prof. Richard Mkandawire, head of CAADP at NEPAD, said: 
"This workshop is aimed at assisting African countries to identify, and formulate initiatives for boosting food security and agricultural investment in Africa. It is the result of our collective efforts to deal with the rise in food prices".
The main goal of this workshop was to assist governments in selected countries in Africa to identify and formulate an appropriate country framework of specific food security interventions following an approach to boost food production, availability and access to food for the most vulnerable and cope with higher and more volatile food prices.
Specific objective included:
- Country teams revising their initial project designs for investment
- Developing action plans for finalizing the project preparation
- The participants being exposed to CAADP and in particular CAADP Pillar 3 and its relevance to investment options for food and nutrition security programmes
- Sharing experiences and learning lessons for effective planning
Reference: AllAfrica 27/05 Africa: Agriculture to Be Discussed in Japan
