Development strategies and food and nutrition security in Africa: An assessment

Numerous strategies, policies, and programs intended to assist Africa's development have been conceived and implemented by international bodies, regional and subregional groups, and national institutions. On average, a typical developing country in Africa is assisted by about 30 aid institutions to implement these strategies, yet Africa is still far from achieving food and nutrition security. This paper examines whether those strategies and policies fit the foal of achieving food and nutrition security, how they were implemented, and why the results have been so variable and often lacking. Further, the paper considers the lessons of these projects in terms of strategy formulation and implementation, and how they can be used to effectively and sustainably reduce hunger and malnutrition. The implementation of a strategy requires its clear formulation, a conducive policy and institutional environment, a widely shared consensus about the strategy and its measures, the human capacity for implementation, and sufficient financial resources. In order to evaluate a strategy in detail, it is necessary to address the following issues: -Have key issues been clearly identified, properly analyzed, and located within their political, economic, and sociocultural contexts? -Are objectives clearly defined, internally consistent, and formulated realistically, and have possible conflicts between the objectives been identified and trade-offs between them bee addressed? - Are policies and programs for achieving these objectives appropriate to, congruent with, and supportive of, the strategy? - Is the capacity to implement the strategy available - that is, are there sufficient financial resources, the necessary human capacity, the requisite institutional framework, and adequate infrastructure? - Has the time required for implementation been estimated realistically, taking into account the demands of institution building, education, and training? - Have all stakeholders been included in the process of strategy development, and, in particular, have they been involved in identifying priorities, defining objectives, and in planning and implementing the strategy? - Have the lessons of past experiences of development strategy implementation been taken into account? In the two decades after most African countries became independent in the early 1960s there were high hopes for rapid development, and much Was achieved. The overall economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa averaged 3.4 percent per year between 1961 and 1980. Agricultural development contributed enormously to overall growth and was crucial to the gains achieved in food and nutrition security. But by the end of the 1970s, the major social and economic indicators for African countries began to decline. Agricultural production dropped, resulting in massive food imports.