WESTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA While poverty in the Western and Central Africa region is essentially a rural phenomenon – three quarters of the poor being located in rural areas – the steady expansion of urban areas in coming decades will force farmers to step up their agricultural productivity. Effectively reducing rural and urban poverty, and maintaining agricultural production and food prices at acceptable levels, can only be achieved by substantially increasing investments in rural and agricultural development. In this Assessment of Rural Poverty in Western and Central Africa, the International Fund for Agricultural Development argues that this will involve sustained efforts to: build the human and social capital base; strengthen the pro- poor focus of rural development policies and institutions; improve market access; raise agricultural and natural resource productivity; and reduce people’s vulnerability to armed con- flict, HIV/AIDS and other endemic disease. In many countries in the region, improved macroeconomic and sectoral policy frameworks, greater democracy, and the emergence of dynamic civil-society organizations increase the likelihood that such investments can achieve success. Via del Serafico, 107 00142 Rome, Italy Tel: +39-06-54591 Fax: +39-06-5043463 Telex:620330 IFAD-I E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.ifad.org WESTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA Western and Central Africa Division - Project Management Department .. © 2001 International Fund for Agricultural Development. All rights reserved. This Report is a product of the staff of IFAD and the judgements made herein do not necessarily reflect the views of its Member Countries or the representatives of those Member Countries appointed to its Executive Board. IFAD does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any consequence of their use. Designations employed in this Report and the presentation of the material in the maps do not imply the expression of any opinion, on the part of IFAD, concerning the legal status of any country or territory, or the delineation of its frontiers. ISBN 92-9072-017-4 Photographs IFAD: Horst Wagner, x; C. Rycroff, xiv; Roberto Faidutti, 12; Fiona McDougall, 30; Robert Grossman, 72; Christine Nesbitt, 80. Typeset by the International Fund for Agricultural Development Printed in Italy by Palombi Rome, December 2001 FOREWORD FOREWORD Since its founding in 1978, IFAD has focused its efforts on poverty alleviation in rural areas of the developing world. At that time, and for a number of years thereafter, IFAD’s voice was a rather lonely one in the international community. To the extent that poverty reduction was on the international agenda, it was generally believed that general eco- nomic development and favourable policy frameworks would be sufficient to lift poor nations out of poverty. During much of the 1980s, in Africa and elsewhere, "getting pri- ces right" became the overarching theme for advocates of structural adjustment. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as adjustment efforts stalled in many countries – sometimes exacerbating social tensions – and researchers began to detect differential impacts of adjustment on social groups, poverty problems became more visible and calls for social safety nets became more pronounced. Yet it remained largely unappreciated that the poor could respond to appropriate incen- tives and become agents of growth but that they would also need interventions specially tailored to their needs. Safety nets were frequently regarded as either charity or a means of buying political stability. That poverty reduction should be the central theme of the eco- nomic and social development efforts of governments and the international community, and that it was potentially a very wise investment, was not yet acknowledged. This changed in the latter half of the 1990s. The 1995 World Social Summit placed poverty reduction squarely on the global development agenda. The development com- munity called for a halving of global poverty by the year 2015. Poverty reduction is now an overarching goal for governments and international donors, and its centrality was reconfirmed at the Millennium Summit in 2000. It is now generally acknowledged that growth can only be truly sustainable (economically, politically and socially) when poverty is explicitly taken into account. Yet in some ways, IFAD’s voice is still a lonely one. While fully 75% of the world’s 1.2 billion poor live in rural areas, official development assistance (ODA) patterns fail to acknowledge this simple fact. While agriculture is the primary livelihood source for the rural poor, international financing for agricultural development declined by nearly 40% from 1988 to 1998. Only about 12% of total ODA is devoted to agricultural develop- ment. In the absence of increased recognition of where the poor live and how they make their living, and greater commitment to investing in agricultural and rural develop- ment, the international development goal of halving poverty by 2015 will not be met. iii ASSESSMENT OF RURAL POVERTY IN WESTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA While investing more in the rural poor is necessary, understanding how to do it better is crucial. It can no longer be a question of outside experts deciding what is best for the poor and imposing predefined solutions on them. In working with the rural poor, I believe we must approach them with respect for their knowledge, beliefs and practices. We must always remember that a key element of human dignity for any individual is gaining control over major decisions that affect his or her welfare. The poor need to have this first if they are ultimately to attain the more tangible things the non-poor possess. This report follows the IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2001 launched earlier this year. It is one of a series of regional poverty assessments prepared by the five regional divisions of IFAD’s Programme Management Department. The Rural Poverty Report 2001 and each of the regional studies provide overviews of the major characteristics and underlying causes of rural poverty and identify opportunities for alleviating it through strengthening the asset base of the rural poor. It is my wish that this report will stimulate discussion on appropriate and effective means of addressing the needs of the rural poor in Western and Central Africa. More importantly, I hope the report will serve to galvanize action for coordinated and sustained efforts on the part of governments, civil society and donors to make the dream of an Africa without poverty a reality. Lennart Båge President of IFAD .. iv INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION IFAD, in accordance with its mandate, has for nearly 25 years been actively engaged in the battle against poverty. It has periodically assessed the rural poverty situation in dif- ferent parts of the world in order to identify strategic and operational approaches for improving the effectiveness of its interventions. This assessment represents a further contribution to these reflections. I believe it is especially pertinent in light of the oppor- tunities and challenges that face Western and Central Africa in this new millennium. Preparation of the assessment began under the direction of my predecessor, Mr Yahia Bouarfa. It has benefited from contributions of researchers, colleagues engaged in bilat- eral and multilateral cooperation activities, Member States of IFAD, and above all, from women and men in Western and Central African farming communities. The assessment has also undergone a series of reviews in the region and at IFAD. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to all those who contributed to this work. Poverty in Western and Central Africa is essentially a rural phenomenon. The incidence of poverty is approximately 75% in rural areas, out of a total impoverished population of about 120 million persons. To achieve the principal Millennium Development Goal, the number of those living in poverty must be reduced by half, or by approximately 60 million persons in the region. Furthermore, projections indicate that urbanization will continue to grow; consequently urban poverty will become dominant by the 2020s. This increase in urbanization will oblige a shrinking farming population to increase agricultural productivity in order to keep pace with burgeoning food demand in the cities. Effective reduction of rural and urban poverty and maintenance of both agricultural production and food prices at acceptable levels can only be achieved by substantially increasing invest- ments in rural and agricultural development. In recent years, a number of favourable developments have created opportunities for reducing poverty. Economic growth in the subregion, which fell by 20% per capita over the last 20 years, is progressively on the rise. This is principally due to the considerable efforts that governments have made to improve the sectoral, macroeconomic and poli- tical environment. It is also due to the trend towards more open socio-political climates, which permits civil society to increase its participation in community affairs, and allows greater decentralization of decision-making. Furthermore, as there is increasing attention v ASSESSMENT OF RURAL POVERTY IN WESTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA throughout the world to poverty, development partners have been redirecting their actions to address this fundamental problem. In this regard, the debt reduction initia- tives, which hold promise to aid many countries in the region considerably, represent concrete