Africa's largest economic group, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), will in the next two months launch an agricultural development program in six African countries, according to a newsletter released by the organization's secretariat on Saturday.

The program, which is dubbed as the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP), is a framework which sets the focus and priorities for sustainable agricultural development in Africa, the newsletter said.

The program has received assistance from international donors such as the Untied States Agency for International Development ( USAID) and the World Bank, which have agreed to intervene to deal with the real problems of the region such as food security and agricultural uncompetitiveness.

The USAID will reorient 200 million U.S. dollars per year to CAADP while the World Bank has indicated that they will find some 2 billion dollars for irrigation program.

The first batch of countries covered by the program are Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia, and the program will be extended to another five countries thereafter until it is fully launched in 15 of COMESA's 20 member states by June 2007.

Source: Xinhua