WEST AFRICA: Agricultural aid “bypasses governments”, says NGO

Photo: Phuong Tran/IRIN

Produce from aid-funded agricultural project in Niger (file photo)

DAKAR, 4 November 2009 (IRIN) - Donors have promised US$40 billion in aid to agriculture in developing countries since the Rome “food summit” in 2008, but in some countries the bulk of this aid is uncoordinated, shortsighted and does not support government priorities, says NGO Oxfam. l

“Technical and financial partners are supporting different projects that are totally disconnected from one another and from the agriculture policy framework set up by the government,” Jean-Denis Crola, author of the report ‘Aid to Agriculture: from promises to reality on the ground’, told IRIN. 

“And many of the new interventions do not represent new money, but are financial re-allocations from other sectors,” he said.

Rather than working through governments, most donors and technical partners in the three West African countries Oxfam studied – Burkina Faso, Ghana and Niger – channel agriculture financing through UN agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) or the World Food Programme (WFP), and other international institutions; they also implement projects themselves through consultants, said Oxfam.

Impact

In 2007 in Burkina Faso 27 development donors supported 131 separate agriculture projects, most of which bypassed government structures, Crola told IRIN; in 2008 this had been cut to 80, but this number still overwhelms government administration, he pointed out.

Lack of coordination also weakens governments’ administrative capacity as finance ministries are forced to employ dozens of staff whose sole job is to track and report on a multitude of projects, said Oxfam.

With most projects lasting three to five years, donor timeframes can also stymie long-term planning in government.

But most importantly such policies leave people hungry, as investment in agriculture remains low, Crola said.

In Burkina Faso while the government had stressed the need to streamline agricultural financing through a few grain, produce and livestock cooperatives, the four major agriculture donors – World Bank, Germany, Denmark and Canada – chose to support 30 different networks among them, without sufficient coordination in selecting, Crola said.

As a result some sectors such as sesame, soya, and cowpeas were over-supported while staple foods as rice and maize were under-funded, he said.

“A process”

Emmanuel Nikiema, the World Bank’s programme director in Burkina Faso, told IRIN while there have been problems coordinating in the past, “harmonizing our aid with government policies is now the order of the day for all of the major donors in the country.”

Coordination is a process, and while donors could improve their performance, the government must also fulfill its role by showing strong leadership on agricultural policy, he said.

“We [financial and technical partners] are there to support not to replace the government, and it is up to the government to be at the forefront of the strategy,” he told IRIN.

G8 leaders reiterated the need to coordinate funding when they pledged $20 billion at the September 2009 summit, to help developing countries out of the food security crisis and to support long-term agricultural development.

In September 2008 at a forum on aid effectiveness in Ghana, donors reiterated their commitment to improving the predictability and coordination of aid efforts.

Leadership

Oxfam agrees stronger government leadership is needed. Governments must develop policies, demonstrate better leadership on agriculture and work with the commercial sector to develop stronger regional policies if they are to develop a stronger voice with external donors, says the report.

Many West African governments abandoned agriculture, sidelining it in their national budgets, partly as a result of the Washington Consensus donor strategy.
Between 1995 and 2007 agriculture accounted for less than 5 percent of total official development aid committed to West African states, while about 80 percent of West Africa’s inhabitants depend on agriculture to survive.

Niger and Burkina Faso still have no agricultural policy; their commitments to the sector are spread across several different ministries according to Oxfam’s report.

Opportunity

Donors are improving their coordination and performance in other sectors including health and education, with pooled funds increasingly the norm, said Crola, adding that there is no reason they cannot veer in this direction for agricultural funding.

“The opportunity to change is now while international interest in food security and agricultural development is still a reality,” he told IRIN.

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