Issue Brief No. 45Recent trends in agricultural growth and food security in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA) have been discouraging. With very low labor productivity, yields, and growth rates, agriculture is unable to keep up with population growth or achieve the type of pro-poor growth needed to reduce poverty dramatically. Yet agriculture accounts for about half of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) and is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the population. Behind this gloomy picture, however, lies agriculture’s potential to be the engine for growth in ECA. What do the ECA countries need to do to effectively exploit the potential of agriculture and meet the needs of their burgeoning populations?
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Addenda / 2 pages each
East Africa: Seed Policies
Isaac Minde
Ethiopia -- Growth Options and Poverty Reduction
Xinshen Diao and Alejandro Nin Pratt, with Madhur Gautam, James Keough, Jordan Chamberlin, Liangzhi You, Detlev Puetz, Danielle Resnick, and Bingxin Yu
Ethiopia -- Livelihoods, Growth, and Markets
Stefan Dercon and John Hoddinott
Kenya -- Property Rights
Esther Mwangi
Uganda and Tanzania -- Pro-Poor Public Investment
Shenggen Fan, David Nyange, and Xiaobo Zhang
Uganda -- Income Strategies and Land Management
Ephraim Nkonya, John Pender, Pamela Jagger, Dick Sserunkuuma, Crammer Kaizzi, and Henry Ssali
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