'Change in power could affect progress in food security'--IFPRI
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has warned that change in leadership could undermine progress made in improving food production and ensure food security Africa.
In an interview with West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR), the IFPRI Africa Director Dr. Ousmane Badiane said change in political power does not always result in the transfer of “institutional memory,” which could undermine progress made in the region’s agricultural sector, over the last 15 years.
Often new regimes coming in have often tended to do a blanket repudiation of everything/policy without thoroughly sifting the good one from the bad ones and starting anew.
“Lack of institutional memory makes it extremely difficult for the new regime ”to understand what were the factors that undermine growth in our country in the 1970s and 1980s and how to avoid us falling back into the same practices and the same policies,” the IFPRI official pointed out.
Badiane urged African governments to urgently make strategic investment in their respective agricultural sectors.
The IFPRI executive noted that if African governments were to support small holder farmers in their countries, they could generate up to US$30 billion of extra income, based on the current growing demand for food globally.
WADR’s Jedi Ramalapa speaks with the IFPRI Africa Director Ousmane Badiane.
Click audio below to listen
Meanwhile, United Nations officials have warned that the Sahel food and humanitarian crisis is going from bad to worse.
Several West African countries have recently changed governments including Senegal and Guinea Bissau.
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