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Rapid Assessment of Aid Flows for Agricultural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

FAO Investment Centre Discussion Paper










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    Book (series)
    Technical study
    Public–private partnership innovations for aquaculture development with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa 2024
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    This document indicates that sub-Saharan Africa presents investment opportunities for partnering with governments in infrastructure development, including road networks and energy supply systems, which can improve access to remote aquaculture sites and reduce production costs. Partnerships can also be established to build and/or maintain much-needed infrastructure, such as fish processing facilities, cold storage facilities and port facilities, as these facilities can improve efficiency and productivity in aquaculture. Moreover, there is a need to upgrade farming technologies through investing in more knowledge and capital-intensive production systems; PPPs can play an important role in this regard. Accessing international markets requires certification of fish and fishery products. This is yet another opportunity for PPPs to provide testing and certification services.Public–private partnerships hold great potential for enhancing the benefits of aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the lack or weakness of regulations constitutes a bottleneck to the establishment of PPPs in aquaculture. Another significant obstacle is the existence of unclear guidelines, which can lead to uncertainties about compliance and hamper the success of partnerships. Additionally, the high costs of borrowing money, arising mainly from elevated interest rates associated with borrowing funds for PPP projects, pose a key challenge to PPPs. This issue is even more pronounced in the case of aquaculture projects because of limited knowledge among lenders and the inherent risks involved.
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    Policy brief
    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
    Other document
    Emerging investment trends in primary agriculture
    A review of equity funds and other foreign-led investments in the CEE and CIS region
    2013
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    In recent years, private equity funds that invest a substantial part or all of their capital in primary agriculture have increased both in number and volume globally. Investment in primary agriculture is an emerging asset class among private equity funds and other institutional investors, one that has attracted increasing attention following the commodity price spikes and associated warnings on food security from 2007 to 2008. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is now considering investment in such funds as part of its operations. The purpose of this study, conducted under the FAO/EBRD cooperation, is to help the EBRD understand and assess the benefits and risks of investment in primary agriculture, in particular through private equity funds, in selected countries which are significant producers of agricultural commodities.

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