The Challenge in Africa

Reversing persistent hunger and poverty in Africa is one of the great challenges of the 21 century.  Sub-Saharan Africa is home to three-quarters of the world’s ultra-poor people – those living on less than 50 cents per day – and poverty is more severe in Africa than in any other region of the world. 

Because the majority of Africa’s poor live in rural areas, and rural livelihoods are ultimately dependent on agricultural productivity, the most important strategy for achieving rapid, poverty-reducing growth is an emphasis on accelerating agricultural growth.  Yet despite mounting evidence about agriculture’s important contribution to broad-based economic growth, during the 1990s US bilateral assistance to African agriculture fell by two-thirds, aid from other industrial countries fell by half, and World Bank funding plummeted by three-fourths.  The global food price crisis of 2007/8 brought home the dramatic implications of world neglect of agricultural development. 

US development assistance programs have increasingly focused on meeting emergency humanitarian needs, with considerably less attention to strengthening the foundations of agricultural development.  There is now a consensus, both in Africa and the US, that the balance must change.  African leaders have committed themselves to boosting agriculture’s share of national budgets to ten percent.  The U.S., the World Bank and other donors are now also moving toward more substantial investments in agriculture.    

The current financial crisis places these new commitments in serious jeopardy.  The emerging reality is that all – in Africa and the international community  -- will have to do “more” and “better” with limited new funding.  As the new leadership in Washington takes a fresh look at US policies and development assistance principles, it is imperative to focus sharply on the goal of alleviating hunger and poverty and on the practical steps that can be taken to dramatically improve the impact of US investments across all agencies.  Just as important, the new leaders must give those who stand to benefit or suffer the most from US policies and programs – Africans themselves – a seat at these critical discussions.