African public sector spends only 4% on agriculture: World Development Report

The latest World Development Report calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries and warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realised.

Titled 'Agriculture for Development', the report says the agricultural and rural sectors have suffered from neglect and under-investment over the past 20 years. While 75 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture in developing countries.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at relatively high levels.

The World Bank Group is advocating a new 'agriculture for development' agenda. According to the WDR, for the poorest people, GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in reducing poverty than GDP growth originating outside the sector.

"A dynamic 'agriculture for development' agenda can benefit the estimated 900 million rural people in the developing world who live on less than $1 a day, most of whom are engaged in agriculture," said Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank Group President. "We need to give agriculture more prominence across the board. At the global level, countries must deliver on vital reforms such as cutting distorting subsidies and opening markets, while civil society groups, especially farmer organisations, need more say in setting the agricultural agenda."

According to the report, agriculture can offer pathways out of poverty if efforts are made to increase productivity in the staple foods sector; connect smallholders to rapidly expanding high-value horticulture, poultry, aqua-culture, as well as dairy markets; and generate jobs in the rural non-farm economy.

"Agricultural growth has been highly successful in reducing rural poverty in East Asia over the past 15 years," said Francois Bourguignon, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Economics. He said the challenge is to sustain and expand agriculture's unique poverty-reducing power, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where the number of rural poor people is still rising and will continue to exceed the number of urban poor for at least another 30 years.

For its part, the Bank intends to continue increasing its support for agriculture and rural development, following a decline in lending in the 1980s and 1990s. Commitments in FY07 reached $3.1 billion, marking an increase for the fourth straight year.

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