ROLL ON THE GREEN REVOLUTION FOR AFRICA
by Jacques Diouf*
Nearly half a century after a British Prime Minister described a “Wind of Change” blowing across the African Continent, a new wind may be gathering over Africa.
The change Prime Minister Harold Macmillan spoke of was Africa’s passage from colonialist rule to political independence. The new wind of change concerns Africa’s economic empowerment.
A new mood of confidence is spreading from Carthage to Cape Town in a continent long perceived in terms of economic decline, exploding population growth, food insecurity, and debt, AIDS, recurring natural calamities, wars and famines.
Just as important, that mood is increasingly being shared at international level. Foreign Direct Investment to Africa has swelled from $18 billion in 2003 and 2004 to $38 billion in 2006. Confidence is being boosted by Africa’s recent growth record, which has seen Gross Domestic Product (GDP) top five percent every year since 2004 compared with 1.93 percent in 1980-90 and 2.45 percent in 1990-2000.
GDP growth of almost six percent is expected in 2007 and 2008 while the sub-Saharan group of countries is expected to grow even more, at 7.1 and 6.7 percent in 2007 and 2008 respectively. If sustained this, would put the group – which includes 47 countries – on the right track to meeting the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty reduction by 2015.
Also encouraging is the annual growth rate in the agricultural sector registered between 1994 and 2004: it reached 3.9 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared to 2.4 percent in Asia, 2.6 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean and 2 percent globally.
Such results stem from a combination of factors including increased South-South trade with the emerging economies of China and India, significant debt reduction, a more attractive investment environment stemming from improved governance, plus the adoption of bold African policy initiatives such as The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
But Africa’s recent achievements, although considerable, must be seen as a point of departure, not arrival.
The scale of the task ahead remains as gigantic as the continent itself. By the year 2050, two billion people, or one out of every five human beings, will be living there. Feeding them, while also reducing the numbers of malnourished, currently standing at some 220 million, represents one of the priority challenges of the 21st Century.
While there is no forgetting the food security problems of developing countries in general and of Least Developed Countries in particular (almost all of the world population increase from 6.6 to 9 billion will take place in developing countries), the situation in Africa is of particular concern.
Africa is the only region in the world where agricultural productivity has been largely stagnant. Yields of maize and other staple cereals typically remain at about 1.0 ton per hectare – about half of those achieved in Asia and Latin America – while in the years ahead global warming is expected seriously to exacerbate current constraints on African farmers.
Moreover, latest FAO estimates indicate that, over the past 15 years, the number of undernourished people on the continent has actually increased by 45 million.
In order to reverse the trend and end hunger in the region and lift millions out of extreme poverty, in order to achieve and sustain Africa’s economic growth, what is required is nothing less than an African Green Revolution.
Fortunately, we already possess the know-how and the scientific and technological tools required to achieve that objective. The moment, too, is right.
After nearly two decades during which aid to agriculture was regarded as the poor relation of development assistance, the international community and, just as important, the African themselves, have come round to recognizing its central role.
Significantly, the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008 will, for the first time in 25 years, focus on the role of Agriculture for Development. On the African side, governments are actively working to honor their 2003 Maputo Declaration to commit ten percent of their budgets to the agricultural sector.
We know from experience that the top-down application of science and technology will not work. Africa’s Green Revolution must therefore be homegrown.
The four It’s needed to drive it are:
• Infrastructure -- heavy investments in irrigation and water management are essential in sub-Saharan Africa, where less than four percent of total arable land is currently irrigated, as against 33% in Asia & the Pacific, and 29% in the Middle East and North Africa. Massive investments in road infrastructure are also required.
• Incentives – African governments should give priority to sound national agricultural policies, and adjust to new international trade regimes through revised pricing and trade policies. The creation of more open access to markets and fair and predictable prices for produce are important to enable production increases on the African continent.
• Innovation -- new technologies and farming systems are essential while it is also crucial that ways are found to make knowledge more easily accessible to the smallholder farmer in an affordable and sustainable manner.
• Institutions -- there is an urgent need for strengthened national institutions that facilitate productivity enhancement and the functioning of commercial agricultural markets.
Additionally, it must be recognized that given the wide variety of agro-ecological zones and farming systems existing in Africa there is no “one-size” solution. Africa’s Green Revolution, although continental in design, must be context-specific in implementation. It must also give pride of place to smallholders in a context where seven out of ten people live in rural areas.
The most recent data on African agricultural production indicate that the revolution may already have begun. It must be allowed to gather force, to roll on despite the new challenges of global warming and beanery.
And although, by definitions, the Africans themselves are the leading protagonists in that process, a significant contribution will be required of the international community. A good way to start would for the G8 countries to start delivering on their commitment to double aid to Africa between 2004 and 2010.
*Jacques Diouf is Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
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