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Firm-level logistics systems for the agrifood sector in sub-Saharan Africa

Report based on appraisals in Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania










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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
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    Policy brief
    Facilitating gender responsive access to finance in the agrifood sector in sub-Saharan Africa
    Making the African Continental Free Trade Area work for women: Policy brief
    2024
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    This policy brief focuses on promoting gender-responsive access to finance for women in the agrifood sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). It highlights the critical contributions of women to agrifood systems, while also discussing the substantial challanges and barriers they face to accessing finance due to persistent gender-based constraints and structural inequalities. These include discriminatory social norms, limited opportunities for business development, and restricted ownership of property and assets. These obstacles are compounded by a lack of gender-responsive financial products and services. Formal banking institutions and products often de facto exclude women since they are unable to provide collateral, forcing many to rely on personal capital and informal savings schemes, which severely limits their business growth and potential.The brief proposes several solutions to address these barriers, emphasizing the importance of enhancing financial literacy among women and promoting formal microfinance and rural banking. It suggests implementing guarantee and insurance schemes tailored to the needs of women-led businesses and developing financial products and services that are responsive to gender-specific challenges. Additionally, the brief underscores the necessity of gender-responsive policy reforms and the engagement of multiple stakeholders to ensure inclusive financial inclusion.Furthermore, the policy brief advocates for increased representation of women in decision-making roles and the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws within the financial industry. It also calls for measures to ensure women's land and property ownership rights, recognizing that secure land tenure is crucial for their economic empowerment. By implementing these recommendations, the brief argues that bridging the financial gap for women in agribusiness can significantly enhance productivity, economic growth, and food security across Africa.
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    Policy brief
    Unlocking public expenditure to transform agrifood systems in sub-Saharan Africa 2022
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    This policy brief highlights the main challenges of public spending on food and agriculture in selected sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Public spending – or expenditure – on food and agriculture is widely accepted as the most cost-effective strategy to drive structural transformation and poverty reduction in developing countries. So much so that back in 2003, countries in the African Union stressed agriculture as an engine for socioeconomic growth, and committed to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets to the sector. Almost 20 years later, most countries out of the sixteen analysed in the FAO study on ‘Public expenditure on food and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: trends, challenges and priorities’ still struggle to hit this development target. What, therefore, is stopping countries from spending more on the sector? Rather than a lack of political will, various factors such as constrained public budgets, limited fiscal space, and the burden of debt repayments are obstacles to higher public spending on agrifood systems. Moreover, the policy brief underscores two critical expenditure issues: budget execution and implementation. On average, over 20 percent of funds goes unspent, and this is more likely to occur in capital investment expenditures such as irrigation and road infrastructure. Raising additional resources for the sector where possible, unblocking already available resources and managing them effectively, as well as de-risking private-sector investments in the sector, and prioritizing spending with the highest returns, are the keys to unlocking public expenditure to help transform agrifood systems.

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