Nov 05, 2007

Will more agriculture in Africa help Africans eat?

by Laura Starita

The World Bank’s most recent annual development report, issued last week, placed the agriculture sector at the center of the organization’s anti-poverty campaign. This is just days after an internal evaluation committee released its findings, critiquing the Bank’s recent activity in the agricultural sector, particularly in Africa. The evaluation argues that over the past 15 years, the Bank significantly decreased support for the agricultural sector, to the detriment of poor farmers in the developing world. As a result, production in Africa has lagged, since impoverished farmers have had fewer resources for seed or fertilizer and no roads on which to transport their crops. Agriculture, both reports conclude, needs to be prioritized.

The importance of a well-fed population to growth and prosperity is obvious. What does not seem clear, however, is the direct link these reports – and the reporting done on them – seem to draw between agriculture as a sector and the resulting large-scale decreases in poverty that come as a result of national economic growth. As Oxford University economist Paul Collier says in an interview with Philanthropy Action, agriculture is a slow-growing sector everywhere, and not likely to result in the kind of rapid development seen in India, China or Brazil. No once-impoverished country has pulled itself out of poverty through the economic growth solely from agriculture. Though the World Bank report does give conciliatory reasons why agriculture is a meaningful development option for many poor countries, those arguments ultimately amount to saying that we should invest in agriculture in these countries because agriculture is what’s there, which is not entirely convincing as an anti-poverty strategy.

Furthermore, such reports often signal a major swing of the pendulum and a dramatic shift of dollars from current projects to another sector. As a result, other, less en vogue areas become neglected just as agriculture has been. There is no silver bullet for development and constant swings from one issue (health, agriculture, education) to another (corruption, infrastructure, AIDS) leaves us chasing our own tails.

In the case of agriculture, few could argue that no one is paying attention to it, even if the World Bank has lagged. The Gates and Rockefeller foundations have made a major commitment the A Green Revolution for Africa program; The Earth Institute has agriculture as one of the pillars of its Millennium Villages. Oxfam and CARE have seed programs and food purchase mechanisms. If the World Bank shifts much of its resources, who is going to be pushing for the less photogenic but vitally important issues of good governance, trade reform, infrastructure investments and other arenas in which the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors do not have much competence?

New York Times: World Bank Neglects African Farming, Report Says

World Bank Report Puts Agriculture at Core of Anti-Poverty Effort

Beyond Philanthropy: Philanthropy and the Bottom Billion