Ifad bemoans Africa’s poor business climate

As calls for immediate action on food security continue to dominate this year’s African Green Revolution Forum in Arusha, Tanzania, the International Fund for Agriculture Development (Ifad) has said Africa still lacks conducive environment to grow its agriculture sector.

Speaking when addressing the forum, Ifad president Dr. Kanayo Nwanze said the fact that most African nations still dominates the bottom of the World Bank’s ranking on Doing Business attests to this fact.

He questioned the commitment of African governments in making the continent food secure when little is being done to support small-scale farmers.

“If we want to make Africa’s national and regional markets work and if we want to ensure the continent’s food and economic security, then we must transform our infrastructure and the way we do business. And this change must come from within,” he said.

He said Africa should improve its business environment by making it attractive to investors and conducive to public-private partnerships.

A debate on how best to make African national and regional agricultural markets work highlighted the current market problem which is mainly production-led.

One of the panellists, Dyborn Chibonga, who is also National Association of Malawi (Nasfam) chief executive officer, said: “It is either we have produce that is not in demand, of low quality, in short supply or a demand whose produce is unavailable. We really need to think along these lines if we really want to help the local farmers on whose shoulders rest the responsibility of feeding the whole continent.”

He urged stakeholders to organise farmers into groups, saying this is key to creating sustainable markets which in turn improves their livelihoods.

Recognising that access to capital is one of major challenges facing farmers, Kenya-based agro-economist Lucy Muchoki encouraged them to form cooperatives.

Muchoki said cooperatives helps to influence commercial banks to promote the agriculture sector.

“Why not? Organised groups have power not only to access loans from banks, but also to bargain with buyers,” she said.