ASTI’s latest data collection and analysis from Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) exposes a persistent problem and a drag on sustainable development efforts: Growth in research spending is lower than for other kinds of agricultural investment.
Why is this happening, and can anything be done to reverse this imbalance?
Under the 2003 Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), countries committed to spend at least 10 percent of their budgets on agriculture, with the goal of achieving 6 percent annual growth in their agricultural sectors. In 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, heads of state reaffirmed their support and confirmed that additional investment was needed to meet this target.
The good news is that substantial progress has been made towards these goals.
After a long period of neglect, SSA governments on average more than doubled their investments in inflation-adjusted terms during 2000-2014. Many SSA countries ramped up investments in areas such as farm support and subsidies, training, irrigation, and extension. However, growth in agricultural research investments fell behind.
There is well-documented evidence that agricultural research investments in SSA offer high returns compared with investments in other agricultural inputs. So why aren’t African countries investing more in an area that would both benefit their economies, and help them reach their CAADP growth targets?
There are four main reasons, as outlined in ASTI’s regional synthesis report for SSA.
So what can be done? Raising awareness of these political roadblocks is the first step. Another task for policy makers and research agency leaders is to diversify their funding sources, to avoid over-reliance on donors. Some research agencies, for example, have been able to raise funds from the sale of goods and services, taxes on commodities, or private sector investment. These sources will differ by country, but the importance of including research in the agricultural investment mix holds true for all countries in SSA, especially as they strive to reduce poverty and hunger through their CAADP investment commitments.
See more findings and analysis of research investments in SSA in the full report.
ASTI (Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators program) is part of PIM within the research flagship 1 Technological Innovation and Sustainable Intensification. The program provides open-access data and analysis on agricultural research investment and capacity in low- and middle-income countries. Learn more
This story originally appeared on the ASTI website