Agriculture

This paper addresses the persistent challenge of resource dependence in the world's poorest countries, focusing on the ten poorest African nations where natural- resource rents average 14% of income. It argues that four decades of conventional policy advice, which treated resource dependence primarily as a revenue management problem, have failed to help these countries. While stabilization funds and permanent-income frameworks aim to smooth consumption, they do not answer the fundam ...

Ethiopia continues to struggle to lay the economic foundations of food security for all, more than 30 years after first adopting the East Asian Developmental State Model (EADS) under Zenawi (1911-2012), continued under Hailemariam Desalegn (2012-April 2018), and later shifting toward a neo-liberal, Washington consensus-oriented approach under Abiy Ahmed (2018-present). The achievements recorded under the EADS approach—particularly double-digit annual growth, substantial poverty ...

As El Niño intensifies it generates apprehension among us all. The slow pace of the energy transition and continued carbon emissions have already put us on a trajectory toward an average air temperature rise of 2.8°C above pre-industrial levels (1850)—far exceeding the 1.5°C limit set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. ...

Africa today remains far from food secure. Chronic malnutrition, widespread anemia among women of childbearing age, stunting and wasting among young children, pervasive underemployment in both rural and urban areas, and a youth bulge frustrated by high unemployment are key features of a continent that is seriously off track with respect to the SDG deadline: only 6% of SDGs have been implemented (Mo Ibrahim Forum, 2025).Despite this dismal progress, Africa can still achieve “The Afri ...

This Opinion was originally published on dev-front.org, by Hafez Ghanem, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South.Joe Studwell has spent most of his career working on Asia and brings an interesting fresh perspective on the economics of Africa. This makes the book worth reading even if one disagrees with some conclusions.   The book’s main argument is that Africa should follow the Asian model of first focusing on smallholder agriculture, then labor intensive manufact ...

Gaspillage de l’eau et son mésusage : deux facteurs du stress hydriqueCe Policy Brief est consacré aux phénomènes de gaspillage et de mésusage de l’eau: deux impératifs de la lutte contre le stress hydrique, rappelés, avec insistance, par   Sa Majesté le Roi Mohammed VI dans son discours du 29 juillet 2024, à l’occasion de la célébration du 25ème anniversaire de son accession au Trône. La première partie de l’étude aborde la problématique générale du gaspillage e ...

This paper examines the complexities of the Moroccan agricultural model from a systemic and paradoxical viewpoint. It highlights the fundamental contradiction facing Moroccan agriculture: balancing export-driven growth and global competitiveness with rising ecological challenges and social inequalities, especially amid increasing water scarcity. Despite a strong export performance, Morocco’s agricultural sector remains fragile because of environmental and social vulnerabilities wors ...

This Opinion was originally published on ispionline.it Morocco’s food strategy, once centered on self-sufficiency, now faces climate stress, water scarcity, and global volatility, demanding a resilient and sustainable food system fit for new realities. ...