Agricultural Transformation in Middle-Income Economies: What Future for Food Security?

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 ...

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 ...

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.  ...

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 ...

« 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 ...

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. ...