Agriculture

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. ...

After 1994, everything was a priority, and our people were completely broken. But we made three fundamental choices that guide us to this day. One—we chose to stay together. Two—we chose to be accountable to ourselves. Three—we chose to think big. — His Excellency President Paul Kagame, 20th Commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi (April 7, 2014) Rwanda’s socio-economic progress since 1994 has been remarkable. Rwanda is rightly considered a showcase of the enduring ...

A generation after the end of Apartheid in 1994, the Republic of South Africa is once again at a critical juncture in its long march to realize Mandela’s vision of a society that enjoys six freedoms: freedom from want, hunger, deprivation, ignorance, suppression and fear. While much has been achieved in advancing these freedoms, much remains to be done. South Africa today continues to grapple with substantial poverty and hunger, high unemployment especially among youth and deep ...

This Paper was originally published on springer.com This study investigates the impact of female agricultural cooperatives on women’s empowerment in Morocco, with a focus on the rural Marrakech-Safi region. The research evaluates the effectiveness of these cooperatives in enhancing women’s empowerment through economic opportunities, participatory governance, and leadership roles. The Global Empowerment Index (GEI) was adopted to measure empowerment across five key dimensions: p ...

Ethiopia presents a unique case among developing countries, having combined major social welfare programs with an East Asian-style development-state approach to investment. However, it differs from its East Asian counterparts in two key areas: it has not maintained decades of uninterrupted political stability, nor has it implemented a comprehensive land reform. Even so, its experience illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of the East Asian development model. Despite a d ...

Tunisia’s stagnant growth since the Jasmine Revolution (2011) illustrates that political democracy, when not anchored in economic democracy, is fragile at best. Economic democracy remains absent in Tunisia, as markets are concentrated and continue to be burdened by high barriers to entry and rules that favor a privileged few. These conditions stifle dynamism, competition, and ultimately, inclusive growth. The government’s decision to paper over these structural weaknesses through s ...

The author of this opinion, David Michael Terungwa, is a 2017 alumnus of the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Program. As the world commemorates Earth Day 2025 under the theme "Planet vs. Plastics," it is a timely moment to turn our attention to one of the planet’s most overlooked heroes: the soil. Often hidden beneath our feet and largely absent from climate conversations, soil plays a vital role in sustaining life, supporting biodiversity, and buffering the impacts o ...

Africa has strong prospects for achieving food security within a generation— provided its leadership effectively mobilizes domestic and foreign funds, drives strategic investments, and strengthens institutions that incentivize smallholders and other stakeholders to invest in resilient, high-productivity agriculture amid accelerating climate change. This is undoubtedly a tall order. However, the time is now to seize the golden opportunity of regional market integration through the A ...

China and India have become powerful incumbents in the manufacturing-for-exports and services-for-exports sectors, respectively. This has made it difficult for Africa, as a latecomer, to employ similar growth models for its own development. Given current geopolitical tension, its own comparative advantages and urgent needs, modernizing agriculture should be the growth model for Africa. ...

Millions are severely malnourished in a world where there is enough for all. Hunger and malnutrition stalk more than 3.1 billion people. Yet, widespread hunger in all its forms is a problem which has been largely solved at the macro level in today’s high-income, industrialized countries. Their “escape from hunger and premature death” is a fairly recent phenomenon. It began around 300 years ago, continued for most of the 20th century and is still ongoing today. The problems faced by ...

The agricultural sector is responsible for 72% of global water withdrawals, and is the biggest employer of the world’s most vulnerable and poor populations. Still, close to 84% of smallholder farms in low- and middle-income economies are located in water-scarce regions, with less than one third of them having access to irrigation (UN, 2024). These small-scale farmers also bear the heavy weight of land degradation and climate crisis. It is estimated that food production will need to ...

National and regional visions for the future of water and food security have been at the forefront of sustainability talks. Nevertheless, the role of soil in water and food security and carbon management needs to be highlighted and integrated into these discussions and visions. The dynamic characterization of soil as a medium that accounts for the long-term impact of the agro-environmental conditions is of utmost importance to sustainability of these resources and to sustainable dev ...

Cette étude est consacrée à l’Éthiopie, pays dont l’histoire remonte à la nuit des temps et où l’agriculture représente 70 % à 80 % des emplois. Nation agricole, donc, mais aussi pays au potentiel minier connu, lequel demeure sous-exploité. Depuis le début du vingt-et-unième siècle, l’Éthiopie a développé des liens privilégiés avec une multitude de puissances, émergentes notamment. Au premier chef, la Chine trône en partenaire privilégié, auquel s’ajoutent des p ...

The rise of agriculture technology (AgTech) solutions in Africa has opened significant avenues to transform food systems and tackle long-standing obstacles to enhance smallholder productivity. To effectively expand these promising, yet nascent, AgTech solutions, collaborative efforts involving African governments, development partners, and AgTech innovators are essential. Scaling these solutions requires African governments to establish comprehensive digital-infrastructure and devel ...

Nigeria has the potential to be an economic powerhouse, but food insecurity stalks a large share of its population. Over the last fifteen years, undernutrition has increased from over 7% (2004-06) to nearly 13% of the population (2017-2019). The COVID-19 pandemic of course exacerbated health and nutrition problems. With the current high inflation, an additional 4 million people have been pushed into poverty, from 90 million (Dec. 2022) to 94 million (April 2023) (WBG, June 2023). S ...

Ghana achieved lower middle-income country status by 2011. However, its growth path in the previous decades did not lay the foundations for the economic transformation of Ghanaian agriculture and therefore its overall economy. It relied primarily on extractive and non-renewable resources (gold and oil) and cocoa exports, and it did not diversify. While much progress was made in poverty reduction, pervasive low productivity and job informality continue to condemn millions to poverty, ...

This policy brief was originally published on T20 India website   Supportive policies for tropical agriculture have helped millions of small-scale farmers in Brazil step out of poverty by improving government capacity to design legal frameworks to strengthen agricultural production and family farming. Scientific and technological developments have enabled small-scale Brazilian farmers to produce food while considering local tropical conditions. In contrast, tr ...

If you search on “Google” for a pizzeria in Kyiv, you have many choices, such as “Mimosa Brooklyn Pizza”, “Mamamia”, or “Vesuveo”.  If bombs or supersonic missiles do not scare you, more formal dining pleasures exist. “Feel like a star”, reads one of the ads for the “Matisse”, located on the 15th floor of the “Cityhotel” in the historic part of town - an eatery 52 meters up could be a tempting target for Russian missile attacks. Wladimir Klitschko, a former world heavyweight bo ...

It is estimated that $1 trillion to $6 trillion per year (up to 2050) needs to be invested globally if the world is to stay below the 2°C global warming ceiling of the Paris Agreement and to meet its adaptation goals. Currently, investments stand at about $630 billion per year, way below the original target. And although great efforts have been made in the climate-finance area, more than 70% of the funds deployed have gone to one sector, renewable energy, followed by the transportat ...

Seleman Yusuph Kitenge an alumnus of Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program. Learn more about him here. Introduction Food security refers to the availability of sufficient, safe, nutritious food for all people to maintain a healthy and active life (FAO, 2021; Suleri, 2022). It affects people at global, regional, national, sub-national, and household levels, and presents itself in different forms, including chronic, acute, and transient. Food insecurity exacerbate ...

Mauritius was on the brink of disintegration in the 1980s, but by 2019 had managed a peaceful transformation from a low income, monocrop, inward-oriented economy to a diversified, outward-oriented, upper middle-income country. Mauritius is now again at a crossroads, having to adapt to accelerating climate change and the impacts of multiple crises. The government of Mauritius has a vision of transforming the country into a knowledge-intensive and inclusive economy of the Fourth Indu ...

This publication was originally published in https://www.mdpi.com/   The Moroccan agricultural cooperative sector is a key player in self-employment and income generation through territorial anchoring. The government’s “MOURAFAKA” program offers support for newly created cooperatives, including strategic diagnosis and training. This paper analyzes the impact of the MOURAFAKA program on the sustainability of agricultural cooperatives in Morocco. Using original data from a ...

The fundamental role that water resources play in human development has been highlighted in multiple ways; the United Nations SDGs underline 17 different goals and over a hundred targets to be achieved by 2030. Out of 169 SDG targets, 59 were found to have direct links and synergies with the water goal SDG6 (UN Water, 2016). Careful policy making and interventions need to be implemented to avoid conflict among sectors and tradeoffs must be well established. The Integrated Water Reso ...

La double crise actuelle de l’énergie et du conflit militaire en Ukraine freine énormément les processus qui se développaient dans l’ère post-Covid 19. Dans ce contexte fragile et tourmenté, la vulnérabilité touche également les chaînes globales de valeur et les systèmes agroalimentaires. La vulnérabilité de la Chaîne Globale de Valeur (GVC) est une fonction de la capacité d’adaptation (CA) face aux chocs et aux impacts potentiels que présentent la fragmentation du ...

While 2021 brought higher prices for almost all agricultural, mineral and energy commodities as the economy caught up after Covid, this was not the case for 2022, with, on the contrary, prices diverging substantially. The onset of war in Ukraine certainly drove up the price of many commodities given the significance of Russia, Ukraine and even Belarus in world production. However, it was the imposition, or not, of trade and financial sanctions against Russian exporting companies and ...

Si l’année 2021 fut marquée, dans une situation de rattrapage économique post-Covid, par la progression des cours de la quasi-totalité des matières premières agricoles, minérales ou énergétiques, tel ne fut pas le cas pour 2022, caractérisée, au contraire, par une grande hétérogénéité de trajectoires. Le déclenchement de la guerre en Ukraine a certes conduit à une élévation forte de nombreux produits de base en raison du poids de la Russie, de l’Ukraine voire du ...

Climate change threatens to reduce the water flow in the Nile and increase the frequency and severity of droughts and floods in Egypt, which already suffers from water scarcity. This threat is a looming crisis as it seriously undermines the Government of Egypt’s long standing food self-sufficiency approach to food security, an approach which is wasteful of increasingly precious arable land and water resources, while achieving neither more food self-sufficiency nor meaningful food se ...

If the recent peaceful transfer of power in Madagascar heralds a new trend, then the Malagasy people can dream big. For decades, the exercise of economic-cum-political power in the hands of a tiny elite has held the entire nation hostage. Today, the high poverty rate—around 80% (2021) stands in stark contrast to the natural resource abundance of this huge enormous island. There is hope, however, that with political stability, the Plan d’Émergence Madagascar (PEM) President Andry R ...

This brief argues for a pan-African food security initiative that would: 1). encourage free trade in food products between African countries; 2). promote multi-country regional investments in infrastructure to enhance agricultural productivity and resilience to climate change; 3). support public-private partnerships to establish fertilizer factories across the continent; 4). create an African council responsible for coordinating and encouraging agricultural research and development; ...

Rwanda is famous for its remarkable socio-economic performance after the ravages of the Genocide against the Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. Under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, Rwanda has followed a state-led development model with stunning results. Despite these substantial accomplishments, Rwanda is still a low-income country with extensive poverty. Its agriculture is still of low productivity and highly vulnerable to climate change. Structural transformation has we ...

Le conflit russo-ukrainien fragilise la sécurité alimentaire d'un grand nombre de pays africains, la Russie et l'Ukraine étant deux acteurs majeurs du marché agricole mondial, particulièrement celui du blé. C'est pourquoi, l'approvisionnement en blé du continent est au premier rang concerné par ce conflit qui perdure, dont le premier enseignement concerne le risque de non approvisionnement, en blé russe et ukrainien, des pays qui en sont le plus dépendants. Cette étude montre qu'il ...

Sleepless nights and the tireless search for compromise allowed WTO members to agree on concrete deliverables during the WTO 12th Ministerial Conference held last June. Those results reinforce Multilateralism. And this is a significant gain given the multiplicity of global crises that surround us. The Outcome include 6 Agreements, Declarations and Ministerial Decisions that respond to some of today's challenges, notably on Fisheries and Ocean Sustainability as well as responses to P ...

Implications of Food Systems for Food Security: The case of the Republic of Mozambique Mozambique is resource-rich and strategically located on the east coast of Africa between Tanzania and South Africa. Its mineral wealth includes coal, iron ore, bauxite, copper, gold, rubies, and natural gas. Valuable marine stocks include crustaceans, demersal and pelagic fish which populate its long coastline. Its agriculture is endowed with plentiful land, water, and a generally favorable clima ...

The world is facing its worst food crisis in 70 years as a perfect storm of geopolitical events contributes to a spike in prices. Wheat alone has jumped 53% since the start of the year. Alarmingly, a number of governments have responded to the crisis with export bans. Governments and organizations worldwide must act decisively to avoid knee-jerk neo-mercantilism, which would add to the volatility in the global economy. Globalization is at a fragile moment, and mercantilism still lur ...

Oil dominates Nigeria’s economy- “Africa’s Giant”. Oil revenues are both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because they are the single most important contributor to government revenues; a curse because, through the Dutch Disease, they undermine the productivity and competitiveness of other non-oil sectors, primarily agriculture and agri-processing; and manufacturing, two major sources of non-oil employment and incomes. Since Nigerian governments did not try to counter the Dutch Dis ...

The world food price index collected for the last 60 years by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) hit its highest record in March, declining gently in April. Pandemic, war and death in Ukraine, and droughts in the last 2 years… Such a combination looks apocalyptical. Now it is adding global hunger risks, because of the food price crisis. The rise in global food prices started in mid-2020 because supply chain disruptions triggered food stockpiling. Mobility r ...

Following on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and severe drought in North Africa, the Russian invasion of Ukraine – large exporters of food and, in the case of Russia, energy— may inflict increased hunger on the food insecure in Morocco – despite mitigating measures by the government. Morocco is so far successfully shielding its large poor and vulnerable population by subsidizing essential commodities. With memories of the violent protests during the 2007/08 food and fuel crisis ...

For the second time, Côte d'Ivoire is known for being a "miracle economy" –high aggregate GDP growth of 8% per year since 2012. Despite this achievement, its food systems are unable to deliver food security to most Ivoirians. These systems are being undermined by several structural factors, which include broad-based low productivity and limited diversification of its agri-food sector; the high numbers of extremely poor, some 30% of the population; and the vulnerable who are millions ...

Known for being a climate change hotspot, Morocco is at the forefront of a climate disaster. Consequences are already being felt, whether in the form of increasing temperature or a downward trend in precipitations, which directly threaten the water security and, by extension, the social-ecological systems of the country. The systems by which food, energy, and water are produced, distributed, and consumed heavily depend on one another. Their implicit feedbacks and links are not linea ...

Le sommet afro-européen des 17 et 18 février 2022 à Bruxelles marque la sixième édition de la rencontre de haut niveau entre les deux continents. Ce sommet, organisé traditionnellement en alternance entre l’Afrique et l’Europe, intervient dans un contexte régional et international marqué par la perspective de sortie de la pandémie de la Covid-19, l’épreuve de force entre l’Occident et la Russie et les turbulences que connaissent certaines régions africaines. Face à une E ...

Addressing the increasing demands for water, energy, and food requires a coherent methodology to ensure that  societies have access to them and that conflict over them is avoided. For example, agriculture and food production  require water and energy; energy production also requires water and, in some instances, agricultural products.  Water distribution and treatment can be very energy intensive. Therefore, the benefits of approaching the Water- Energy-Food (WEF) nex ...

Mauritius  is  a  refutation  of  the  proposition  that  food  self-sufficiency  at  all  costs  is  the  way  to  achieve  food  security.  Mauritius,  a  trade-dependent  island  economy,  imports  around  three  quarters  of  its  food  consumption. It is food self-sufficient in only local vegetables and fruits. Post-inde ...

The transformative potential of regional market integration for a large trading bloc is well exemplified by the European Union which started integration on a modest scale. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also started on a modest scale and has delivered benefits in terms of promoting growth through greater regional market integration, both within ASEAN and in Asia more generally. ASEAN however runs on different principles to the EU (though there are some similariti ...

After completing his studies abroad, Hamza Rkha co-launched a start-up in 2018 with an associate, at 27 years of age. Their company, named SOWIT, is based in Casablanca, Dakar and Paris. It provides data-based decision support tools to African farmers. Through an App and processed satellite images, it helps optimize irrigation, fertilization and phyto-sanitary situations. “We work exclusively in Africa, says Hamza Rkha, with products designed for the weak connectivity of old g ...

This paper estimates the economic impacts of climate change over the Brazilian regions until the end of the century. We estimate the direct and indirect impact of the projected changes in climate on the yield of the country’s main crops. The results point to a broad spatial heterogeneity of impacts across the country. Using the extreme scenarios created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (RCP 2.6 and 8.5), our predictions indicate that the average annual losses ...

Within the context of the United Nations Food Systems Summit taking place in September 2021, this brief discusses key drivers of food systems in Africa, as well as the challenges and opportunities for transformation. It concludes with specific policy options that could considerably accelerate progress towards the transformation of food systems across the continent. Specifically, this policy brief makes five recommendations: it recommends that investment in research and development f ...

Cette étude concerne la Communauté économique des Etats d'Afrique de l'Ouest (CEDEAO), rappelant, tout d'abord, leur diversité géographique, démographique et économique. Montrant ce que ces Etats ont en commun mais, aussi, ce qui les différencie. La CEDEAO, qui réunit quinze pays parmi les plus pauvres de la planète, si on se réfère à leur PIB par habitant, en dollar courant ou en parité de pouvoir d'achat/PPA/. Ce qui explique une démographie explosive, sans que l'on puisse dire si ...

Brazil, an oil-exporting nation, was still struggling to recover from the depression which started around 2014/15 when it was hit by a quick succession of shocks: the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price collapse. The global pandemic triggered major economic dislocations and contractions in foreign and domestic markets, which further exacerbated the fall in demand for oil, sending world prices tumbling further. Poverty was already widespread in Brazil pre-pandemic. And despite recen ...

Selected experiences with GMOs in industrialized and developing countries show that the promise of bioengineering for strengthening food security cannot materialize unless and until GMOs are accepted by the vast majority of consumers as being safe and environmentally friendly. To date, the main effort has been on the supply side: bioengineered plants have desirable traits helpful to farmers, e.g., increased yields, resistance to pests, resilience to weather extremes in a warming wor ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed new vulnerabilities in social, infrastructure, and governance systems. In the first months of the pandemic, there was a genuine concern about the capacity of the Global South to contain the spread of the virus. African cities were particularly vulnerable, with some experts1, including the head of WHO2, predicting a catastrophe for the continent. Despite the structural and chronic challenges that African cities face, including informality, poverty, a ...

Building on decades of biochemistry research, bioengineers have successfully transferred genes across species to produce living organisms (plants and animals, including fish) with desired traits. Unlike traditional breeding practiced over 10,000 years, this process takes years not centuries from initial conception to field testing and commercialization. Given its precision and range of application, biotechnology has even been compared to ‘playing God’. Since the mid-1990s, major gen ...

Food security for all requires (i) sustained productivity growth and competitiveness, not only of agriculture but of the entire economy; (ii) a social safety net; and (iii) resilience in the face of periodic shocks. This is the central message of this review. Two popular concepts in food security for all are food self-sufficiency (FSS) and food sovereignty (FSY). While countries have pursued different policies to achieve FSS, the common element in their approaches is the misguided ...

Our Senior Fellow Rabi Mohtar has co-authored with our economist, Fatima Ezzahra Mengoub along other researchers a research paper entitled « A Water-Energy-Food Nexus approach for conducting trade-off analysis: Morocco’s phosphate industry in the Khouribga region » in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Journal (Volume 24, Issue 10). The study objective was to develop and use the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Phosphate (WEF-P) Tool to evaluate the impact of Morocco’s phos ...

South Africa shows that being food self-sufficient is a far cry from being food secure when poverty is extensive, the majority of people suffer from the “quadruple burden of disease”1 , the economy is highly unequal, and when improving the quality of the public health infrastructure remains a major challenge despite successive governments’ efforts. The major factors that undermine food security and health in South Africa are directly or indirectly due to the long history of social ...

The securitization of climate change has important implications in terms of how the issue is framed and addressed, at national and international policy levels. It has become clear that climate change poses multiple and overlapping security challenges, including in terms of livelihood insecurity, disruption to agriculture and energy infrastructure, can fuel social tensions, conflict, and displacement. But consensus is growing around a more moderate view that climate change is exacerb ...

We are living through unprecedented times. The COVID-19 pandemic threatens not only our health, but the very foundation of life itself: our food security. Now more than ever, we are forced to rethink our food security as we witness the widespread dislocations to our food system, forcing millions to beg for food for the first time. During normal times, our world produces enough nutritious food for all but millions still go hungry every day. Why does this happen and what can be done t ...

Low-productivity, subsistence-smallholder agriculture everywhere faces tremendous new challenges, in addition to decades-old constraints. Smallholders are threatened by being bypassed by the rise and dominance of domestic and global value chains (DVCs, GVCs). They are also being threatened by global warming, which is already rewriting the basic parameters of temperature and precipitation on which their entire activities depend. These global forces are much too powerful for any farmi ...

S'il y a un point positif dans cette pandémie de COVID-19, c'est la prise de conscience de l'importance de ce qui nous est le plus cher : la sécurité alimentaire et les fondements de l'espoir. Sécurité alimentaire : Ceux d'entre nous qui jouissent de la sécurité alimentaire réalisent à quel point nous dépendons de chaque maillon de la chaîne agroalimentaire. Pour les citadins, un des premiers signes que cette chaîne est rompue est la présence de rayons vides - pénurie d'approvisio ...

If there is any silver lining to this COVID-19 pandemic, it is the realization of the importance of some of what we hold most dear: food security, and the foundations of hope. Food Security: Those of us who enjoy food security realize how much we depend on every link of the agri-food chain. For urbanites, a first sign that this chain is broken is empty shelves—supply shortages and panic buying. We suddenly appreciate the appeal of food self-sufficiency or food sovereignty: develop ...

Food insecurity is not a new concern. Many people around the world are already undernourished because of several factors, including climatic, economic, and political factors. Unfortunately, in times of crisis, as currently with COVID-19, food insecurity becomes more acute and requires urgent intervention to mitigate the negative impact on people's access to food. Aware of this, many governments have implemented different short-term measures to tackle this issue. However, it is impor ...

Across Africa, many rural communities still depend on manual and animal power for their farm needs, whether it is for production, harvesting or postharvest activities. In fact, in sub-Saharan Africa, engine power represents a meagre 10 per cent of all energy used on farms, compared to 50 per cent in developing regions. Without access to mechanised tools and technologies, farming is a tough, laborious and time-consuming process. Farmers are often left with small harvests, low income ...

The Atlantic Current’s 6th edition provides overview, fresh insights, latest data, and broader analysis on the Atlantic space’s current challenges, as well as their implications for the South. Different chapters explore emerging trends and critical issues, such as the World Trade Organization reform, Brexit and the future of EU, the expansion of militancy in the Sahel and Coastal Africa, the role of cultural diplomacy and the deepening of Sino-African relations within a shifting an ...

Subsidizing fertilizer prices has been a popular policy tool to increase fertilizer use, but should it be? The main message of this Policy Brief is that it should not be, despite its appeal to politicians and recipient farmers alike. Instead, policy makers should seriously consider a holistic approach to promoting fertilizer. A holistic approach has the potential of effectively addressing a range of key interlocking constraints which condemn smallholders to low input, low productivi ...

If the concern is solely to increase fertilizer use by Sub-Saharan Africa’s smallholders, price subsidy for inorganic fertilizer can be effective. The strengths and weaknesses of relying primarily on price subsidies to promote fertilizer use have been discussed at length and will therefore not be dealt with here. But if the goal is to assist smallholders use fertilizer productively, profitably and sustainably-financial and environmental, much more is required. Making fertilizer affo ...

This paper is about the basic principles which should guide fertilizer policy for smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa It is not about detailed country-specific prescriptions on the “how” of policy. This important task should constitute the substance of detailed country studies. The overarching goal here is to use fertilizer to spearhead and sustain an African Green Revolution (GR). In this paper, fertilizer use is not considered as an end in itself, but as a necessary mean ...

Adopting an integrated approach to the management and governance of natural resources including land, water and energy is seen as an effective way to improve the sphere of production while respecting the environment. Fatima Ezzahra Mengoub, economist at the Policy Center for the New South, was invited by Stockholm Environment Institute, alongside other prestigious research centers with expertise in environmental studies, to co-author this research paper and share her analysis of th ...

Le rapport Arcadia a été présenté le 9 avril à Paris par le Policy Center for the New South (PCNS) et le Cercle CyclOpe. Ce document de référence fait chaque année le point sur la conjoncture des matières premières africaines. “Elles restent essentielles, avec une forte dépendance pour nombre de pays et une gestion de la rente relativement problématique”, a affirmé en introduction Philippe Chalmin, président du Cercle CyclOpe. Fortement exposées aux chocs extérieurs, les écono ...

Commodity prices were once again marked by significant volatility in 2017 and 2018. While there are many economic factors to explain this, politics were also present—trade tensions between China and the United States and, more generally, a rise in uncertainties—weighing upon the global macroeconomic outlook and the ‘dynamism of the markets’. Africa, which has countries with strong growth rates, has, however, been able to show solid economic performance, and this trajectory is not li ...

Les cours des matières premières ont, une fois encore, été marqués par une importante volatilité en 2017 et 2018. Si de nombreux facteurs économiques permettent de l’expliquer, la raison politique fut également bien présente. Les Annual Report tensions commerciales entre la Chine et les États-Unis on Commodity et, plus globalement, la montée des incertitudes ont pesé Analytics and sur les perspectives macroéconomiques mondiales et sur Dynamics « le dynamisme des marchés ». Comptant ...

The author is an alumnus of the 2018 Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program Arable land per capita availability has been steadily decreasing over the last decades, from 0.5 hectare per capita in 1945 to 0.2 hectares per capita in 2016. Worldwide farmers have been, more or less, addressing the intensification challenge by incorporating new technologies, products, and techniques into their farming systems. The intensification challenge also implied a consolidation ...

The yearly Atlantic Currents publication aims to provide a detailed analysis and a fresh perspective about ongoing cultural, economic, political and security dynamics that are shaping the wider Atlantic area today. Launched in December during the Atlantic Dialogues Conference, previous editions explored ways to change mental maps and examined promising opportunities for the African continent. The chapters in this edition of the Atlantic Currents aim to cover key issues and choke po ...

Le présent article expose, outre une analyse holistique du secteur national de production halieutique, les résultats d’un travail de recherche sur l’impact d’un éventuel changement des prix mondiaux des intrants (notamment le pétrole) et des produits de la pêche sur les aspects économiques et biologiques du secteur. Les résultats de ce travail indiquent que ce secteur a peu de réactivité face à la hausse du prix mondial des intrants, alors qu’en réaction à l’augmentation des prix à ...

Le progrès économique et social du Maroc passe par des objectifs de croissance dans l’agriculture, secteur prioritaire dans les stratégies et les politiques de développement. Plus encore, les gains de productivité globale des facteurs sont déterminants pour l’amélioration du niveau de vie. Le présent travail de recherche a consisté à comprendre l’évolution de la performance du secteur agricole au Maroc, en étudiant les contributions relatives des facteurs de production et de la prod ...

La ville de Kigali, au Rwanda, a accueilli du 5 au 8 septembre 2018 le forum de l’AGRA, devenant ainsi la capitale de l’agriculture africaine pendant ces quatre journées. Délégations gouvernementales, partenaires techniques et financiers, chercheurs, universitaires, investisseurs, producteurs, club de réflexion, entre autres, étaient en conclave pour faire l’état des lieux du secteur et mesurer les progrès accomplis sur la route de la transformation de l’agriculture africaine.  ...

De nombreux engagements ont été pris par les dirigeants africains en vue d’induire une forte croissance agricole en mettant l’accent sur la productivité, notamment par le recours aux engrais. Actuellement, les progrès sont lents et les engagements pris ne sont, pour la majeure partie des pays, pas encore respectés, faute de non mise en place de conditions favorables à l’atteinte de ces objectifs. Des interventions ciblées sont nécessaires pour réduire les coûts de transaction et amé ...

African leaders have made many commitments to promote strong growth in the agricultural sector, with a focus on productivity, in particular by using fertilizers. Currently, progress is slow. Goals have not yet been reached in most countries, as the favorable conditions required to do so have not been created. Targeted action is needed to reduce transaction costs and to improve farmers’ access to fertilizers. However, such action will have limited impact without the introduction of a ...

“This article has been originally published in 'Morocco in Focus 2018,' the magazine of the Moroccan Embassy in New Delhi, India on the occasion of the Morocco National Day 2018.” Introduction In an article published last year, the author stressed the role of partnership between Morocco and India for the inclusive growth of small farmers. There is no doubt that agriculture remains a major instrument for human development both in India and in Africa. Several international reports&n ...

Why do farmers need access to newer technologies on a recurrent basis? Most subsistence farmers already know how to farm and undertake post-harvest processing from their parents. The main reason to turn to technology is that traditional techniques for subsistence agriculture are grossly insufficient when it comes to generating the productivity and output growth required to adequately lift millions out of poverty and keep them out of it. “Efficient but poor” as Schultz (1964:37) put ...

Maintenance of macro and political stability over decades is essential for sustaining an environment where private incentives to invest in higher productivity and profitable agriculture can flourish and bear fruit. It is necessary, but not sufficient. Most countries experience periods of instability either due to price inflation, in terms of trade shocks, and/ or political stresses. Those countries that maintain macro and political stability over decades, despite these shocks, are t ...

The irony facing many developing countries today is that increased food trade and the implications of globalization has created a situation where certain segments of the population are simply put, eating too much, while just in their proximity lies a more significant segment of the population who are suffering from the complete opposite, malnutrition. This policy brief aims at explaining this double sided sword. ...

Agricultural investment is a necessary requirement to develop and organize the agricultural sector in Africa. The African agricultural potential offers opportunities to be seized in terms of intensification of production and structuring of the agricultural value chains. Although it is diversified, agricultural investment (public, private and foreign investments), remains weak. The shift towards a modern and intensive mode of agriculture must necessarily go through the development of ...

L’agriculture africaine a connu dernièrement une croissance relativement élevée, quoique peu résiliente et tirée principalement par l’extensification. Malgré sa diversité, les niveaux de production restent insuffisants pour autonomiser le continent surtout pour ce qui est des produits alimentaires de base. En misant sur l’intégration, des marges de progrès se présentent aux pays africains pour améliorer l’écosystème de l’agriculture africaine et ses performances. Il s’agit de puiser ...

The second United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG2) includes the goal to: “End hunger and achieve food security and improved nutrition” by 2030. While such an ambitious goal will clearly involve a wide range of policies and actors, this policy brief focuses on the role of trade policies in affecting food and nutrition security. Extensive and frequently contentious, debate swirls about whether trade in agricultural products is beneficial or detrimental for food security, pa ...

The purpose of this paper is to propose the establishment of a forward-looking partnership between China and Morocco, centered around the agri-food issue in Africa. It is in Africa that the food demand will increase in a very significant way during the 21st century due, in particular, to population growth and the acceleration of urban development. Africa must succeed in its agricultural revolution in order to fight hunger and poverty, ensure the industrialization of its economy and ...

L’objet de ce travail est de proposer la mise en place d’un partenariat de progrès entre la Chine et le Maroc, centré sur la question agroalimentaire en Afrique. C’est dans ce continent que la demande alimentaire va augmenter d’une façon très sensible au cours du XXIème siècle notamment en raison de sa progression démographique et de l’accélération de son urbanisation. L’Afrique est dans l’obligation de réussir sa révolution agricole pour combattre la faim et la pauvreté, accéder à ...

India and Morocco have enjoyed a steady and fruitful relationship that continues to grow thanks to the trade opportunities between both countries. Indeed, the various agreements between India and Morocco yielded effective results for both countries who set a model of South-South cooperation that is also a win-win partnership.  Both countries share many common challenges as both are middle income countries. They have been enjoying sustained economic growth in the past two decad ...

Renewable energy technologies are projected to have substantial growth in the coming decades, especially given the environmental, social and economic drivers observed globally. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region encloses abundant alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and hydropower. The concern is more whether the Arab region will be able to respond to and manage the growth opportunities in this emerging sector. This Policy Brief explores opportunities and chall ...

In June 2017, the second Annual Report on Commodity Analytics and Dynamics In Africa (Arcadia report) was published, in collaboration between the OCP Policy Center and CyclOpe. Its aim is to annually report on the evolution of the economic, legal, financial and societal links between Africa and the world commodity markets, both with regard to the cyclical changes in the markets, and to the structural changes or failures that may have emerged. Focusing on 2016 and early 2017, the Arc ...

L’entrée des économies africaines dans le nouveau millénaire s’est accompagnée de performances économiques remarquables, par rapport aux décennies antérieures. Le secteur agricole, qui demeure la clé de voûte du développement économique et social, n’est pas resté en marge. Globalement, ce secteur continue d’enregistrer une croissance robuste, tirée par une hausse de la productivité, mesurée de façon partielle et globale. Les résultats à plus basse échelle laissent toutefois entrevoi ...

In comparison to previous decades, remarkable economic performance accompanied the entry of African economies into the new millennium. The agricultural sector, which remains the cornerstone of economic and social development, has not remained on the sidelines. Overall, this sector continues to show robust growth, driven by an increase in productivity, measured in part and overall terms. However, lower-level results point to serious disparities and a need to strengthen progress towar ...

Trade integration is a prerequisite for the success of any economic integration project. The factors hindering trade integration therefore constitute a bottleneck to the economic integration project of the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is an effective means of coping with the substantial expansion of sub-regional food demand. The aim of this paper is to highlight the factors that constrain trade flows and increase the cost of trade in the ...

OCP Policy Center and its partners, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) at the New York University are pleased to announce the publication of a Special Issue on "Food Price Volatility and its Consequences" in Oxford Economic Papers. The papers selected in this special issue were first presented in February 2014 at an international conference organized in Rabat in collaboration with the IMF's Research Department and &n ...

Does agriculture indeed no longer have any place in national defense strategies? If the European and OECD examples encourage an affirmative answer, the counter-example comes from the United States of America, which considers agriculture and food issues as an integral part of national security. In the US defense doctrine, food security not only concerns the food industry, but it also concerns all areas of security. ...

Ultimately, the question we need to ask ourselves is what sort of investment approach or model best addresses the challenges to the growth of the African Agribusiness Industry. The macro variables around African Agribusiness point to an excellent investment opportunity. The combination of low cost of entry, low production cost, opportunity to increase productivity, and high local prices suggest an attractive return profile. However, the opportunity exists because of basic market f ...

Developing policies and strategies for global resource security (water and food) are critical to the healthy future of our planet. The world today faces an increase in the amplitude and frequency of dynamic stresses that greatly challenges our ability to provide effective policies and strategies. We believe that one limiting factor for this challenge is the lack of an adequate, standard quantitative representation that incorporates both the nature of the resource and its natural fun ...

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) consecrated the year 2015 as the International Year of Soils (IYS). Therefore, it has been a year intended to raise the consciousness of humanity about the importance of this resource (soil) and the need to preserve it to ensure sustainable and shared prosperity. The various stakeholders in the management and use of this resource, particularly those of the agricultural sector have been called to enhance their consideration of this fragile ...

The expression “green revolution” is controversial today; yet my own assessment is that, in spite of many valid criticisms, the Green Revolution was a major achievement for humankind: it made erroneous the Malthusian predictions of the 1960s and 70s that it would be impossible to provide enough food for a rapidly growing world population and that major humanitarian crises, including famines, would occur in several countries within a few years, particularly in South Asia. In a wider ...

L’Inde est aujourd’hui un acteur majeur sur le marché international des engrais, quels que soient les éléments nutritifs considérés. Qu’il s’agisse de ses importations, de sa production intérieure ou bien encore de sa consommation, ce pays affiche des chiffres qui le classent parmi les trois premiers acteurs mondiaux du secteur. Dans le même temps, une analyse interne de la situation en Inde révèle l’existence de nombreuses contraintes. Certaines sont structurelles car liées à la pa ...

The 16th Annual Global Development Conference has been dedicated this year to the theme of ‘Agriculture for Sustainable Growth: Challenges and Opportunities for a New ‘Green Revolution’.  One of the sub-themes that has been addressed during this event is related to the design of the optimal agricultural policy supposed to lead towards development, especially in low-income countries. The objective of this blog is to cover the key elements that make an agricultural policy su ...

« Les asymétries et l’instabilité du marché des matières premières dans les pays en développement : politiques et impacts sur le développement », une problématique d’un intérêt particulier pour ces pays, a fait l’objet d’un séminaire de recherche organisé par la Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International (Ferdi), les 24 et 25 juin 2015 à Clermont-Ferrand. Cet évènement a été tenu la veille du workshop co-organisé par la Ferdi et OCP Policy Center ...

Sustainable agriculture and food security are of particular concern for the countries of the Middle East andNorth Africa (MENA) region, and represent one of the biggest challenges facing the area. As a consequence of the region’s heavy reliance on food imports, the sharp increase in food prices since 2007 and the consequent world food crisis has had severe adverse effects in several countries, causing macro-economic problems (inflation, trade deficits, fiscal pressure), increased po ...

We finished Part I - Solving the Capital Formation Issue with a question? How should institutional investors go about looking for the best partners to help them make successful investments in Africa; and fundamentally, the real question to ask is, what are the variables required for building successful investment platforms in Africa? Whenever one meets with an allocator from an institutional investor to discuss an allocation to an Africa strategy, the first question on th ...

1970s : Oil and wheat are strategic commodities, their prices are skyrocketing, Arab countries declare an oil boycott against the US and the US contemplates to retaliate with a grain embargo. Gulf countries are alarmed and look into a plan to develop Sudan as an Arab breadbasket.  This plan, however, unravels by the 1980s amidst political instability, misguided project designs and alleged corruption amongst the Sudanese (Nimeiri) regime. Instead, Saudi Arabia embarks on a ...

Over the next couple of months, we want to explore the investing climate in Sub Saharan Africa (“SSA”) and try to understand where it is and what elements/variables are required to increase the continent’s attractiveness to institutional investors and thereby speed up the continent’s development. We will discuss the Private Equity industry in Africa and delve into the challenges faces. We will then work through how best to address them, and in particular, in the Agribusiness sector. ...