Indicators for agricultural transformation in Africa

The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) has released a handbook titled Capacity Development for Agricultural Transformation and Food Security in Africa. ACBF is supported by a group of bilateral and multilateral partners including World Bank, African Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and International Monetary Fund.

//  Africa Capacity Indicators Report

A core message in the 2012 Africa Capacity Indicators Report (ACIR) is that improving the productivity and the economic returns of agriculture has immediate effects on poverty and hunger in at least three important ways:

• Increase in the productivity and incomes of the majority of the Africa's poor, who work primarily in agriculture
• Reduction in food prices that affects real incomes and poverty in urban areas
• Generation of important spillovers to the rest of the economy - countries need capacities of all kinds to make these productivity improvements and secure the required economic returns.

//  Main findings

Overall, as judged at the ACI composite index level, whereas in 2011 there wasn't a single country that classified in the "high" category of capacity, in 2012 one country (Ghana) improved by barely sliding into that level. Also, there are notable improvements in "Development results at country level", where the percentage of countries in the lowest levels (Low and very Low) decreased from 61.7% to 19%. The majority shifted from "low" to "medium" level and one can observe a country (Ghana) in the "very high" level.

//  Anticipated impact on agricultural transformation

With this report, ACBF hopes to bring political, policy, research, investment, and capacity development attention to the implementation, monitoring, and tracking issues holding back the transformation of African agriculture and the guaranteeing of food security for its growing and youthful population. The book posits that "done right, agriculture can indeed transform Africa". It further suggests that "it needs to start by using agriculture to transform the structure of Africa's economies".

//  Source

ACBF

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