Agricultural Growth, Domestic Policies, the External Environment, and Assistance to Africa. Lessons of a Quarter Century

摘要

Africa's economic crisis is increasingly coming to be recognized as stemming from the critical state of agriculture in most African economies. Nonetheless, and in spite of agriculture's overwhelming importance as a source of food, exports, employment, savings, government revenues, and raw materials for industrialization (and as a market for goods and services produced in the nonagricultural sectors), little systematic data-based, country-specific and cross-country analysis has been undertaken of Africa's agricultural problems and of their implications for government policies and donor agencies. In response to these concerns, a long-term, cross-country comparative study has been undertaken. Its purpose has been to determine where growth has occurred in the agricultural sectors of selected African countries since their independence in the mid-1960s and why, and to assess the extent to which domestic policies and the external economic environment (especially including changes in world market prospects, and the levels, form, and composition of aid) have contributed to the process of growth. The paper gives an overview of the study's methodology and key findings to date. (Copyright (c) 1989 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.)