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Food, Agriculture, Development and the Role of International Institutions
Uma Lele - 3 December 2009
The actions of international organisations concerned with food and agriculture directly affect the lives of two-billion poor people earning less than $2 a day. Poverty and hunger is growing - despite the tremendous contributions that these organisations made to global growth in food and agriculture in developing countries in the 1970s and 80s.
How should these organisations be responding to the challenges of poverty and hunger in the developing world?
The food and agriculture challenge
In his book on Global Food and Agricultural Institutions John Shaw notes that the world food crisis of 2007 was ‘the outcome of prolonged neglect by governments in developing countries and donors to investment in agricultural development.' Agricultural productivity has not only stagnated in Sub-Saharan Africa but also in much of Asia. Global food stocks are at an all time low in the face of widening agricultural trade deficits and declining external assistance.
The problems of poverty and hunger continue, particularly in the poorest countries, with increasing complexity of these issues in agriculture and other sectors, e.g., declining farm size, resource degradation, and water scarcities compounded by climate change.
Global intervention
The institutions Shaw reviews includes multi-lateral organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Bank, the World Food Programme, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. His book does not include bi-lateral organisations such as USAID, US Foundations and Land Grant Universities.Despite a largely common membership there is a lack of coordination among the organisations he reviews.
Can true and effective global cooperation in food and agriculture materialise? Uma Lele argues that the challenges are great and the topic is complex and mired in the larger issues of the aid architecture. This reality has three dimensions, only one of which is mentioned in the book:
- Vast changes in the international aid architecture in the Post World War II period, particularly in the last 15 years, combined with a decline in long term assistance to food and agriculture, imbalanced allocation within and across sectors, misallocation, and decline of capacity of bilateral aid agencies concomitant with increased bilateralisation of multilateral aid.
- Growth in the number of international organisations and programmes, mission creep in the mandates, and changing legitimacy of traditional international organisations with overlaps, gaps, competition as well as cooperation in the ever growing galaxy of aid agencies and programmes, and,
- The dynamics between and among developed and developing countries influencing global policy and strategy.
Realistically speaking developing countries cannot wait for the international organisations to get their act together, or to be led by them.
The role of developing countries
The urgency and the challenges of poverty and hunger suggest that action must now be taken by developing countries themselves. Both in providing enlightened leadership at home and in their respective regions.
Developing countries need strong domestic political commitment to food and agriculture, an ability to mobilise their own domestic policy, institutional capacity and technical and management expertise - however limited - to develop their own long-term national frameworks tailored to their own circumstances.
There is also a need for mobilisation of resources for long-term, predictable and consistent investments at levels and in forms appropriate to each country's needs. Developing countries need to design and deliver services consistent with their own institutional reality and in tune with their resources and free of ideology.
Most importantly developing countries need to learn lessons from both the successful experience, and failures, of other developing countries with an open minded approach.
The future of food and agriculture development
Food and agricultural development is essential for achieving broad-based growth in developing countries.
Overall, the balance of assistance from international organisations which has shifted away from long-term development to emergency assistance, short-term policy lending, and providing advice to developing countries needs to shift back to long-term assistance. This will continue unless developing countries increase production. Donor emphasis on introducing food safety standards and avoiding deforestation would be irrelevant if extensive agriculture continues and export surpluses disappear, because of unproductive agriculture.
Investment in the development of agriculture is as necessary as investment in health and education if we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. A third of the world's humanity is directly dependent on agriculture. For aid to be effective it needs to fit into an overall development programme. The current trends towards bilateral and vertical aid hinder aid effectiveness. As a result appropriate social outcomes are not achieved.
International organisations must coordinate with each other. Additional aid resources will be necessary to enable long-term investments, reduce competition and increase constructive cooperation among them. This will also facilitate independent evaluation of their collective performance.
Read Uma Lele's complete book review article 'Global Food and Agricultural Institutions: The
Cosmology of International Development Assistance', Development Policy Review 27 (6): 771-784. (PDF, 167kb)
The Nexus of Food, Agriculture, Water and Climate Change
On Thursday 3 December 2009, Uma Lele will give the Sussex Dev Lecture on 'The Nexus of Food, Agriculture, Water and Climate Change'. The Sussex Development Lecture will take place at 16.00 in the Chichester lecture theatre, University of Sussex campus. All welcome. For further information please contact Charlie Matthews: c.matthews@ids.ac.uk
Uma Lele is a member of the IDS Board of Trustees. She is former Senior Advisor in the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. She led the Independent Evaluation of the Bank's 1991 Forest Strategy, a Meta Evaluation of the CGIAR and the first major evaluation of the Bank's Approach to Global Programmes.
Photo: Panos.
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Sussex Development Lecture 'The Nexus of Food, Agriculture, Water and Climate Change'
Dates: 3 Dec 2009
Speaker: Dr Uma Lele, former Senior Advisor at the World Bank and member of the IDS Board of Trustees
All welcome.
