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Public expenditure on food and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa

Trends, challenges and priorities










Pernechele, V., Fontes, F., Baborska, R., Nkuingoua, J., Pan, X. & Tuyishime, C. 2021. Public expenditure on food and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: trends, challenges and priorities. Rome, FAO.





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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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    Document
    Initiatives for the Monitoring and Analysis of Agricultural Public Expenditure in Africa. A comparative Review and Analysis 2015
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    The present document reviews and assesses the recent and ongoing initiatives dedicated to monitoring and analysing Public Expenditure in support of Agriculture (PEA) in Africa. This document fills a gap and responds to the need of policy-makers and policy analysts in Africa for a detailed and analytical review of what exists in terms of PEA monitoring and analysis in Africa. The objective of the present review is thus to: (i) shed light on PEA monitoring and analysis initiatives in Africa: not o nly their method and definition of agriculture, but also their nature, objectives, scope, current status, and most importantly their relevance for African policy-makers and policy analysts; and (ii) inform policy-makers and development stakeholders on the various tools that exist to monitor and analyse PEA in Africa.
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    Article
    Rapid Assessment of Aid Flows for Agricultural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
    FAO Investment Centre Discussion Paper
    2009
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    This discussion paper provides an initial assessment of the flow of aid to agriculture in Sub- Saharan Africa. This assessment is based on data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) collected from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) databases (as it was available in April 2009), major bilateral and multilateral financing agencies, as well as two private foundations active in the agriculture sector. Trends in ODA show a long-term decline in agricultural ODA to Sub -Saharan Africa, particularly in relation to social sectors. In recent years, however, ODA to the agriculture sector has increased and there is more financing for agriculture than usually assumed if aid flows from private foundations are included. Findings from the data also highlight the need for: balancing shortterm food security interventions with long productivity investments; a focus on aid harmonization due to numerous donors in the sector; and the potential problem of absorptive capacity due to low disbursement rates by aid recipients.

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