INTERNATIONAL FOOD
POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty
Ghana Strategy Support Program
Concluding Remarks and
Way Forward
Ghana Strategy Forum: The Role of Agriculture in Achieving Middle
Income Status
November 16, 2007 Accra
Outline
• What we have learnt:
-
-
Critical role of agriculture in attaining middleincome (MIC) status
Composition of subsector within agriculture
matters
Regional growth pattern matters
Mobilization and allocation of investment to
support growth
Improvement of governance and institutions
• Knowledge gaps and way forward
Ghana Strategy Support Program
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Role of agriculture in attaining middleincome (MIC) status
•
Reaching MIC requires broad-based economic transformation across the
manufacturing, services and agricultural sectors:
•
•
Transformation: resources and labor move from traditional to modern sectors
Given agriculture’s large share of economy, it is impossible to have rapid
economy-wide growth without accelerating agricultural growth
•
•
Agricultural growth is a pre-condition for any economy to take off (India, China)
Considerable room to promote growth in agricultural sector in Ghana
• Improve productivity through modern inputs, technologies, irrigation, sustainable land
management.
• Structural shifts to high value production
• Improve the delivery of services to smallholders and develop new ways to include
smallholders in more efficient value chains
•
Growth in the agricultural sector requires strong support from the
government to raise agricultural productivity and encourage structural
transformation
•
•
Structural transformation in successfully transforming countries rarely just market-driven
Critical role of government in Asian green revolution
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Composition of subsector within
agriculture matters
• Opportunities to accelerate growth in export-oriented agriculture exist
but domestic agricultural sub-sectors, such as staple foods, have
much stronger growth-multiplier effects
• Domestic market-oriented agriculture supports overall growth by:
• Lowering food prices
• Competing with imports
• Providing cheap inputs for manufacturing
• Natural limits to export-led growth based on primary products,
therefore:
• Diversifying Ghana’s export structure is needed for exports to become
an engine for accelerated growth and structural change
• Government must search for policies that promote private
entrepreneurship and investment (foreign and domestic) in new activities
with dynamic international demand
Ghana Strategy Support Program
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Regional growth pattern matters
• North/South divide in Ghana’s development
• Export-led growth in South not trickled down to North in form of
higher incomes
• Current growth path will lead to greater regional income
divergence and further concentrations of poverty in the North
• To overcome income disparities and to foster
growth/poverty reduction in North, Ghana needs to make
agricultural growth more inclusive by focusing on:
• Lagging regions and household groups that may be left behind in
growth process
• Activities that benefit majority of farmers/smallholders, such as
cereal production, livestock and nontraditional cash crops that are
typically grown in North
• Regional liberalization
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INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Increased investment to support
needed agricultural growth
Increased investment for (not just in) agriculture
• agricultural research and extension programs are
needed to support the accelerated growth
• Improved infrastructure, irrigation, and development of
input markets
• Improved rural education
• Focus on poorer regions
Ghana Strategy Support Program
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Improvement of governance and
institutions
•
For Ghana to reach MIC status => coordination between increasingly
complex macroeconomic, industrial and financial market policies
•
To implement these such complex policies, Ghana needs to overcome
political, administrative, and fiscal feasibility challenges through:
•
•
•
Decentralization (political, administrative and fiscal)
Increased use in political decision processes of policy research results on
inclusive growth
Improved capacity of (i) administration to supply services and (ii) farmers to
demand services
•
Overall, more attention needs to be paid to the specific requirements of
the agricultural sector
•
Role for public agencies and civil society organization in facilitating
cooperation among stakeholders and between stakeholders and
agribusinesses
•
Help to improve the governance systems of these arrangements
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INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Way Forward 1
• Knowledge Gaps:
• How to set up knowledge and information (including data) support
system to support the formulation and implementation of various
development strategies
• Need to evaluate returns to investment in nonagricultural sectors.
• How to mobilize resources to support pro-poor growth: reform od
tax system.
• How climate change, high-energy prices, the rise of new players
like China, India, Brazil affect growth and the poor in the country
• How urbanization affects rural growth and poverty reduction`
Ghana Strategy Support Program
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Way Forward 2
• Need to strengthen the national capacity
• Demand side:
-politicians
-government officials
-civil societies
-private sectors
• Supply side:
-government institutions
-universities
-thinktank culture
Ghana Strategy Support Program
INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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Way Forward 3
• Mutual Learning and cooperation with other
developing countries
- Ghana as a successful case for other developing
countries
- Regional cooperation with other African regions
- Asia/LAC
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INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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