Africa Ousmane Badiane, Julia Collins, and Tsitsi Makombe T
he year 2014 was designated by the African Union as the Year of Agriculture and Food Security and as an occasion to
mark the first decade of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), a continentwide framework for accelerating agricul- tural development.
RECENT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT TRENDS
Following CAADP’s launch in 2003, Africa’s eco- nomic performance has been strong. Gross domes- tic product (GDP) and GDP per capita for Africa as a whole rose, respectively, from 3.9 and 1.8 percent in 1995–2003 to 5.2 and 1.9 percent in 2003–2012.1 Agricultural growth has also been strong for Africa as a whole, expanding at 6.2 percent in 1995–2003 and falling slightly to 5.1 percent in 2003–2012. Although more recently the growth fell short of CAADP’s 6 percent annual growth target, seven countries met or exceeded the target during 2003– 2012.2 Public agricultural expenditures, which are critical to sustaining the recent growth, grew at a remarkable 7.7 percent for Africa as a whole in 2003–2008. However, such expenditures declined by 1.34 percent in 2008–2013 in the aſtermath of the 2007–2008 global food and financial crises, which shrank governments’ fiscal revenues and overall expenditures. Africa’s share of public agricultural expenditures in total public expenditures decreased from 3.7 percent in 2003–2008 to 3.1 percent in 2008–2013, falling short of the CAADP 10 percent target. Nonetheless, seven countries did meet the budget share target or came very close to it, hav- ing agricultural expenditure shares of more than 9 percent.3
External flows, and especially foreign direct
investment (FDI), play an increasingly import- ant role in Africa’s economic growth and develop- ment. FDI to Africa increased from US$51.7 billion in 2012 to $56.6 billion in 2013 and was pro- jected to reach $60.4 billion in 2014.4 While FDI has remained concentrated in a few mostly large resource-rich countries, nonresource-rich countries have also seen their share of FDI flows in total GDP increase in recent years. Poverty and hunger reduction saw steady but
slow improvement. For Africa as a whole, the percent of the population living below the US$1.25/day pov- erty line decreased from 44.4 in 1995–2003 to 41.0 in 2003–2012. Te percent of the population that is undernourished fell faster, decreasing from 24.6 to 20.6 between the two periods. Meanwhile, the prev- alence of child malnutrition (underweight) declined from 23.1 percent in 1995–2003 to 20.9 percent in 2003–2012. Te pace of poverty and hunger reduc- tion has been too slow to prevent the absolute num- ber of poor and hungry from rising, and, on average, Africa as a whole will not meet the first Millennium Development Goal of halving 1990 poverty and hunger rates by 2015. However, there are indications that progress is accelerating: the rates of decline in 2003–2012 were higher than in 1995–2003. At the country level, progress in meeting key
nutrition targets has also remained rather slow. In Africa, only 21 and 8 countries, respectively, are on track to meet one or two of the World Health Assem- bly targets on nutrition.5 Sixteen are not on track to meet even a single target. On the trade front, Africa’s share in the world
trade of goods and services and of agricultural prod- ucts, aſter dropping sharply in the 1990s, began to rise in the 2000s. During the 2000s, agricultural
Ousmane Badiane is director for Africa, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Dakar, Senegal. Julia Collins is research analyst and Tsitsi Makombe is senior program manager, West and Central Africa Office, IFPRI, Washington, DC.
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