International Food Policy Research Institute
sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty
Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, opened the discussion by welcoming the participants and audience. He noted that a stronger emphasis on agricultural development is on the international development agenda. Scaling up past successes will require serious reflection on the part of the agricultural research and development communities.
Hans Binswanger-Mkhize, Honorary Professor at Tshwane University of Technology, then began his presentation of his recent paper, co-authored with Alex McCalla, on the challenges and opportunities facing agricultural and economy-wide growth in Africa. Detailing the current state of development in Africa, he noted that improved trade and agricultural policies, as a result of the structural reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, have led to reduced inflation, fiscal surpluses, and general macroeconomic growth and stability. Per capita agricultural growth on the continent has reached more than 1% per year. These trends, however, have had little measurable impact on hunger on the continent. International donors remain uncoordinated and fragmented, while total development assistance has stagnated. Meanwhile, growth in the agricultural sector has been fueled by economywide expansion, rather than by agriculture-focused programs. These factors, coupled with conflict, weak capacity for infrastructure and regional integration, and poor governance, have led to the persistence of poverty and hunger in rural areas.
Toward a solution, Binswanger-Mkhize suggested deepening the reforms of past decades. On the donors’ end, he called for technical assistance to low-income countries solely in the first four years of an economic turnaround and delaying sustained aid flows until the policy environment has fully stabilized. On the market end, he proposed that African countries develop their domestic and regional markets for food staples and livestock products. Removing trade barriers would enable South-South trade and be much easier than attempting to access niche developed-country markets. This approach would require both building infrastructure and adopting a decentralized sector approach to development.
Focusing on agriculture, Binswanger-Mkhize identified several challenges facing agricultural research in Africa. These include a technology gap, the under-funding of public research, and a fragmented donor-driven environment. He recommended focusing on biotechnology, eliciting support from the private sector, encouraging co-funding from African countries, and moving away from the current emphasis on farming systems. Most importantly, he stressed the importance of community-driven development and agricultural research at the subregional and regional levels. In his view, this approach promises to be the most effective one in helping poor African countries revive their agricultural sectors and begin to tackle widespread hunger.
Nalini Kumar, Senior Evaluations Officer at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, responded to the presentation by pointing out that agricultural growth has not been as large as is often presented: aggregate figures mask the large variation in growth across and within countries and do not measure food crops, which have a poor performance record. She identified individual farmers’ survival strategies and incentives as a major component in agricultural productivity growth. Finally, she highlighted the role of the Bank in contributing to global and regional programs, with agriculture being a part of a broader rural focus. In the future, she noted, donors have an opportunity to work together in a coordinated manner to contribute to the sector through infrastructure investment and public-private partnerships. These efforts will require improved M&E systems and internal capacity on the part of global actors.
Ousmane Badiane, Senior Research Fellow and Africa Coordinator at IFPRI, added that he would like to see how these various solutions could actually be operationalized. The reforms of the 1990s represented the first time that African governments took on economic reforms themselves, with tangible results, and thus, it is important to carry these lessons forward.
Several concerns were raised during the question-and-answer period. These included the types of priorities donors should have when making investments and whether budget assistance has replaced projects as the new donor strategy. Binswanger-Mkhize responded that implementation mechanisms, including for budget assistance, must come from within but also need external support. Following this comment, audience members asked what structural adjustment has accomplished specifically for the agricultural sector. Binswanter-Mkhize replied that while structural adjustment took long to implement, as it was held back by politics, its most impressive feat was the positive change in attitudes toward economic management that surfaced by 1995. These attitudes are bound to have a positive effect on the agricultural sector. An audience member followed up with the question of what evidence, in particular, does the international community have for high returns from agricultural research? Does this presentation suggest that too many resources are going into research? Binswanger-Mkhize replied that his conclusion is simply that farm systems do not increase agricultural production—rather, it is the fundamental changes in technology and profit incentives that are responsible for growth in the sector. While resources for agriculture are important, the way in which these are utilized, i.e. the design, is even more crucial.
For more details, please see the seminar videos above.