The role of agricultural development policies in promoting Africa’s structural transformation

Abstract

Agriculture plays a dominant role in promoting Africa’s structural transformations with evolving policy measures such as the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) and the Maputo Declaration signed by the African heads of State at the Second Ordinary Assembly of the African Union in 2003. These policy measures are geared towards raising Africa’s Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) and inducing export promotion while cutting down on import goods. Raising the performance of the Africa’s agriculture is, therefore, crucial to achieving sustained structural transformation in all sectors of African economy. The emergence of Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) has also helped in alleviating most of the problems facing African farmers at a time and re-positioning African agriculture to embrace advanced structural changes for all inclusive transformation growth. The review therefore recommends African governments to fully maximize the benefits of these developmental policy measures to foster economic growth, development and impactful transformation across all sectors of the African economy.