Africa's Agricultural Policies--A More Concerted Effort Will Be Needed If Reform Is Expected

GAO reviewed efforts by the Agency for International Development (AID) to reform host-government agricultural policies in Sub-Saharan Africa, which have been recognized as a major cause of the current agricultural crisis in the region because agricultural producers are not provided with either appropriate incentives or suitable economic environments to make production beyond the subsistence level worthwhile.

GAO believes that AID preparation of a number of policy and strategy papers, development of guidelines for preparing country development strategies, and testimony before Congress fostered commendable policy reform. However, at the country level, GAO found that AID often does not have an ongoing viable program in place which recognizes the difficulties inherent in realizing policy reform and the potential long-term effort involved. Most missions have not yet fully identified and prioritized the key host-country economic policy constraints, nor have they been involved in the development of national food strategies. In addition, GAO found that further improvements are needed in AID attempts to upgrade the economic analysis capability of its mission staff. GAO found that few missions have better than minimal reform programs underway and that only half of the missions currently have programs to improve host-government analysis capability. Some missions have questioned their ability to effectively discuss policy with host-government officials. Finally, GAO found that many missions are not fully coordinating their reform efforts with other donors and other U.S. agencies or fully using concessional agricultural commodity programs to influence reform.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Joseph E. Kelley Team: General Accounting Office: National Security and International Affairs Division Phone: (202) 512-4128