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There
can be no fight against poverty without supporting agriculture
In
its forthcoming annual report on world development, to be
published in September, the World Bank encourages governments of
poor countries to provide peasant farmers with increased
assistance and financial support. The World Bank thus makes a head
on attack on the neo-liberal doctrine of “structural
adjustment” it has defended for decades. For the first time
since 1982 the report, which should set the guidelines for the
Bank’s new strategy, concentrates on agriculture. After
having been neglected in anti-poverty policies, the support to
agriculture has now become a major issue.
The
World Bank report starts out by stating a fact, which our readers
are well familiar with: “It is striking to note that three
fourths of the poor in developing countries are the rural
populations. 2.1 billion live below the poverty line, on
less than 2 dollars a day, i.e. one third of humankind (…)
Even though agriculture is not the only instrument that can put an
end to poverty, it is a highly efficient tool, which can generate
the necessary growth to get there.”
The
report goes on to make a diagnosis, which reads like a confession
of past errors: “In spite of this, the driving force of
agriculture in development has all too often been under-utilised.
As industrialisation has dominated the political debate, the
possibility of achieving development through agriculture has not
even been considered an option. Developing countries very
frequently suffer from under-investment or bad investment in
agriculture, as well as political shackles, that turn out against
agriculture and poor rural populations. Donors have also turned
their backs on agriculture. This neglect of agriculture has
resulted in high costs for growth, improved living standards and
the environment.”
According
to the French daily paper LE MONDE of April 20 2007 Mr Michel
Griffon, a Frenchman in charge of agriculture and sustainable
growth at the French National Research Institute (Agence nationale
de la recherche), welcomes this radical change, “which will
shape the Bank’s policy for the next twenty years”.
“This is the document that we have been expecting from the
Bank for the past twenty years, since the time when structural
adjustment programmes swept away previous government policies in
agriculture without replacing them”, he applauds.
Noting
that the share of agriculture in public funding went down from
1980 to 2004 in Africa (from 6.4 to 5%), as well as in Latin
America (from 14.8 to 7.4%) and in Asia (from 8 to 2.7%), the
document emphasises the need to re-launch public aid. “Growth
in agriculture, even when led by the private sector and the
market, is highly dependent on support from the public sector.
However, it is in countries where agriculture is the most vital,
that governments seem to be the weakest (…). The
introduction of an agricultural development policy requires solid
national strategies and a public administration that promotes
efficient distribution and financial responsibility (…).”
Vincent
Ribier, economist at the Centre for International co-operation in
agronomic research for development (Centre de coopération
internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement),
took part in an expert meeting on the World Bank report at the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on April 6th. He
was impressed by the change of tone and told LE MONDE: “The
neo-liberal structural adjustment policies pursued by the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund have had a very direct
and adverse effect on the rural populations in poor countries”.
According
to Mr Ribier, for the first time in a major international
document, the World Bank is now about to formally endorse “the
end of the Washington consensus”, which sums up the
strategies of experts at the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury since 1989: privatisation,
deregulation, low taxation, trade liberalisation. One of the
main authors of the report confirms this: “We have clearly
by-passed the Washington consensus, because poverty has not
receded and the environment is now an urgent problem.
At
a time when rural exodus has reached an historic high, according
to the United Nations, the new approach in the World Bank’s
report stems from the perception of new threats. “The
acceleration of climate change, the imminent crisis in water
supply, the slow adoption of new biotechnology and the growing
demand for bio-fuels and animal fodder create new uncertainties as
to the conditions for food availability in the world economy”
the Bank warns.
This
reversal in the World Bank’s approach ought to reassure
peasant farmers all over the world. It is a first step towards the
next stage: recognition of food sovereignty by the World Bank and
the international community. In the meantime the African farmers’
organisations (among others) would be wise to become thoroughly
familiar this document. It ought to enable them to take up useful
negotiations with their respective governments.
The
European Commission has refused to put agriculture on the agenda
in its negotiations with the ACP countries (in Africa, the
Caribbean and the Pacific). Will the Commission be alone in
obstinately refusing to recognise the vital part that peasant
farmers play in the fight against poverty and for development?
Source: LE MONDE of
April 20th 2007
Koudougou, 21 April
2007
Maurice Oudet
Director, SEDELAN
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