Feeding Africa: Key lessons for countries to improve their agriculture sector

Wednesday 25 January 2023

As African Heads of State gather to mobilize and align resources, partners and financing at the 2023 Africa Food Summit 2 in Dakar, Senegal,  on 25-27 January, IDEV is committed to sharing evidence of what works, and what lessons we can draw to improve their investments in agriculture. 

Maximizing agricultural productivity to feed Africa was one of the themes discussed during the 2022 edition of the AfDB’s Evaluation Week. In a dedicated learning session, evaluation experts and sector thought leaders shared lessons from evaluation, research, and experience that can inform the design and execution of future initiatives to increase food production.

Martin Fregene, Director, Agriculture and Agro-Industry, AfDB,  spoke at the event about the strong need to resist shocks and build resilience in agriculture.  With 30 million tons of cereals and 20% of the continent’s fertilizer coming from Ukraine and Russia, the ongoing invasion of Ukraine had resulted in a huge drop in food supply in a context where 20% of Africa’s population is already under-nourished. We need to harmonize free-trade agreements from bread-basket nations to those in need and introduce reforms to make it a more market-led environment, with private sector attractiveness. Financing for agriculture is important to stimulate investments in technology and infrastructure that enable the value chain from farm to table.  The policy environment is also a vital component of success. 

Vincent Castel, Division Manager, Agriculture and Agro-Industry, AfDB,  said that IDEV evaluations are important to improve operations at the Bank. They have for example revealed the strong need for multiple stakeholders in the agriculture value chain, including the private sector.  Many questions remain evolving over time and will require evaluative evidence from IDEV to make the right financing decisions. For instance, how resistant will grain be as the climate change phenomenon accelerates and induces droughts, floods and other shocks on farmers? 

Andrea Cook, Director of Evaluation, at the World Food Program, said that since 2016, the WFP has significantly invested in developing its evaluation function to meet the growing need for accountability and learning. WFP evaluations have shown that its large-scale food assistance programs can boost local and regional food production as well as the entire food value chain, from regional down to local levels.  National structures are expected to assume leadership in sustaining food programs, but they need the necessary resources and capacity to do so. 

Babafemi Oyewole, CEO of Pan-African Farmers’ Organization (PAFO) spoke of the need for government support to smallholder farmers, who contribute significantly to rural food security but for whom low yield is a critical issue. In sub-Saharan Africa, fertilizer use, for example, by smallholder farmers is the lowest in the world.  

Three key takeaways for African countries emerged from the IDEV-led learning session on agriculture at Evaluation Week 2022 : 

  1. Concerted efforts and an integrated approach are needed to build the agriculture value chain, for example, the financing of new feeder roads, electricity access, etc. 
  2. Evaluation is critical to gain evidence and learn what is working, so we can replicate and scale up. 
  3. There is a strong need for a forward-looking agenda to build resilience to Climate shocks and adapt our agricultural production strategies. 

Investing in raising agricultural productivity, supporting infrastructure, and climate-smart agricultural systems, with private sector investments all along the food value chain, can help turn Africa into a breadbasket for the world. 

IDEV evaluations of the agriculture sector in Africa and other knowledge products:

Sector
Agriculture & Agro-industry