Scaling up aid
The crisis in african agriculture: a more effective role of EC Aid?
European aid must not lose food security focus
Authors:
; Practical Action; PELUM Association
Publisher:
Practical Action [Intermediate Technology Development Group], 2005
Agriculture remains key to achieving the poverty targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa. However, agricultural growth is dropping in sub-Saharan Africa, and development aid to the Southern African Development Community is following the same trend. This paper asserts that if poverty in Africa is to be reduced, aid to agriculture must be increased substantially and made to work more effectively. Specifically, the report writes that:
- EC aid to agriculture tends to benefit better off farmers and undermine poor farmers: Aid is targeted towards the funding of commodity associations, the privatisation of agricultural extension services, and support to commodity sectors. Farmers living below the poverty line are usually only supported through the provision of emergency food aid
- EC aid reforms threatens support for food security: food security programmes remain a tiny proportion of aid to the agricultural sector. European development assistance reforms will reduce funding even further for such programmes and will focus more on bilateral assistance to governments. But direct budget support can often work against ministries of agriculture, often one of the weakest ministries.
The report offers a vision for the future, citing the need to increase the productivity of small farmers as a necessary condition for eradicating rural poverty in Africa. The EC must:
- give strong and systematic support to African plans which specifically target poor, food-insecure farmers. Financial support must be redirected through NGOs, which have amassed extensive field experience in livelihood approaches
- scale up it’s food security budget line and implement this though NGO programmes. NGO interventions have repeatedly demonstrated their effectiveness
- strengthen its programme funding for agriculture, rather than phasing it out. It is still too early for donors to devolve budgetary responsibility to African governments, in part due to the lack of clout of MoAs in competing for scarce funds
- EC delegations should insist on the participation of civil society in policy formulation. Where views differ – such as in the type of aid for agriculture - there is a role for the EC to support the fostering of debate with all stakeholders and draw on experts from all sides.
