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WORLD BANK INTERNAL REPORT SAYS IT NEGLECTS AFRICA FARMS
CELIA W. DUGGER, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIUNE - The World Bank, financed
by rich nations to reduce poverty in poor ones, has long neglected
agriculture in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa, where most people depend
on the farm economy for their livelihoods, according to a new internal
evaluation. . . The evaluation of the bank's role in African agriculture
was conducted by an internal unit that assesses all of its operations
and answers to the bank's board and president, not its management.
In the 1980s and 1990s, when African governments faced severe fiscal
crises, the bank pushed for the public sector - often badly managed and
inefficient - to pull back from agriculture, incorrectly assuming that
market forces would jump-start agricultural growth. "In most reforming
countries, the private sector did not step in to fill the vacuum when
the public sector withdrew," the evaluation found.
One result, it said, is that farmers face practical obstacles:
exorbitant fertilizer prices and shortages of credit and improved seeds.
In recent years, yields for cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa were less
than half of South Asia's and one-third of Latin America's, the
evaluation said.
At a time of growing debate about how to combat hunger in Africa, the
evaluation team recommended that the bank, the single largest donor for
African agriculture, concentrate on helping farmers get the basics they
need to grow and market more food: fertilizer, seeds, water, credit,
roads.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/15/africa/15worldbank.php
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WORLD BANK INTERNAL REPORT SAYS IT NEGLECTS AFRICA FARMS
CELIA W. DUGGER, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIUNE - The World Bank, financed
by rich nations to reduce poverty in poor ones, has long neglected
agriculture in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa, where most people depend
on the farm economy for their livelihoods, according to a new internal
evaluation. . . The evaluation of the bank's role in African agriculture
was conducted by an internal unit that assesses all of its operations
and answers to the bank's board and president, not its management.
In the 1980s and 1990s, when African governments faced severe fiscal
crises, the bank pushed for the public sector - often badly managed and
inefficient - to pull back from agriculture, incorrectly assuming that
market forces would jump-start agricultural growth. "In most reforming
countries, the private sector did not step in to fill the vacuum when
the public sector withdrew," the evaluation found.
One result, it said, is that farmers face practical obstacles:
exorbitant fertilizer prices and shortages of credit and improved seeds.
In recent years, yields for cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa were less
than half of South Asia's and one-third of Latin America's, the
evaluation said.
At a time of growing debate about how to combat hunger in Africa, the
evaluation team recommended that the bank, the single largest donor for
African agriculture, concentrate on helping farmers get the basics they
need to grow and market more food: fertilizer, seeds, water, credit,
roads.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/15/africa/15worldbank.php
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