Over the recent past, a new narrative has emerged – that of Africa’s transformation as a way of making the continent’s economic growth more inclusive and holistic.
But transformation is a big word that requires scrutiny from multiple angles, especially when talking about Africa, a continent with a complicated past and a complex, yet hopeful future.
For years, Africa’s transformative journey has faltered; often constrained by historical factors that have shaped the continent, and emerging issues such as poor governance. Still, several countries have recorded significant progress, and the future looks bright. For example, the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) projects that, by 2025, many African countries, will be steering their own growth and transformation agenda, with progress largely led by the private sector.
Agricultural growth and Africa’s transformation
Of the various possible determinants of Africa’s economic transformation proposed by ACET, the role of strong agricultural growth and the importance of diversifying production to make exports competitive stands out. In other words, Africa’s transformation must start with the transformation of the agriculture – the backbone of the continent.
What needs to be done?
It is important to make proper use of land, implying that investment should be directed to better yields as opposed to expansion of cultivated land. Moreover, it will be vital to improve entire agri-food systems. Knowledge will be needed on how to enhance agricultural value chains, from supply of inputs, agricultural finance, insurance, on-farm production, crop aggregation, long-distance transport, processing, and retailing. Moreover, better governance is necessary to ensure that available resources, whether from public coffers or from development agencies, are used effectively for the benefit of farmers. Governments should prioritise adoption of new technologies and facilitate access by farmers, to increase productivity and reduce redundancy in the value chain. To achieve these objectives, adequate, sufficient and reliable energy supply will be necessary. Climate change is a collective global concern and it calls for innovative approaches as well as skills improvement in adoption of better technologies of agricultural production to sustain the overly growing population.
How will agricultural transformation lead Africa’s transformation?
It is evident that growth in agriculture significantly impacts many other economic sectors such as education, healthcare and manufacturing. In addition, agricultural transformation will provide opportunities for the youth, through rural entrepreneurship and creation of small and medium enterprises. pre-empting rampant rural-urban migration trend. Moreover, agriculture provides a platform for development and use of smart technologies. For example, in Kenya, iCow, a mobile phone based agricultural information platform technology, enables small holder farmers access to verified valuable agricultural content. Meanwhile, the country’s famous M-PESA mobile money transfer technology has become a lifesaver for smallscale farmers, while enabling agribusiness.
The fifth PASET forum deliberated possible avenues to improve the quality of higher education and TVET institutions in promoting the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). From the discussions it was evident that countries such as Singapore have laid down sustainable strategies over the last three decades to improve their ICT sectors. This progress is worth emulating. In Africa, expansion of already existing programmes and as well as new partnerships between with bilateral and development partners. This will create an ideal environment to support all levels of capacity building from doctoral to research and innovation for Africa’s development.