Stimulating agricultural growth and rural development in sub-Saharan Africa

Vijay S. Vyas and Dennis Casley

No 15, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Economic growth in sub - Saharan Africa depends on reducing the regions deterioration in agricultural performance. But efforts to restore agricultural growth are hampered by the ecology of the region, undermined by policies that jeopardize agricultural and rural development, and complicated by sluggish global economic growth as well as agricultural policies in industrial countries. Given the region's necessary transition from a land-extensive to a land-intensive farming system, attempts to improve agricultural production and to lay the groundwork for sustained rural development will depend on the correct choice of policies. Equally crucial to Africa's agricultural development will be parallel efforts to remove policy barriers that have undercut agricultural production or hurt agricultural productivity. In addition to policy reform, long-term improvement in African agriculture will require developing and extending new production technologies. It will also require creating institutional structures to strengthen national research capabilities, and designing policies and investment strategies to improve the links between the farm and non-farm sectors in rural areas.

Keywords: Agricultural Research; Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems; Environmental Economics&Policies; Drylands&Desertification; Crops&Crop Management Systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1988-06-30
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... d/PDF/multi0page.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:15

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().