Whereas there is plenty of work looking at macroeconomic effect of public spending on growth and poverty in Africa as well as studies of the impact of spending or investment in one economic sector on outcomes in that sector or on broader welfare measures, this book fills a much needed gap in the research looking how the composition of public spending affects key development outcomes in the region. The book brings together recent analysis on the trends in, and returns to, public spending for agricultural growth and rural development in Africa. Case studies of selected African countries provide insights on the contributions of different types of public expenditures for poverty, growth and welfare outcomes, as well as insights into the constraints in gaining development mileage from investments in the agricultural sector.

Enhancing the productivity of agriculture is vital for Sub-Saharan Africa's economic future and is one of the most important tools to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity in the region. How governments elect to spend public resources has significant development impact in this regard. Choosing to catalyze a shift toward more effective, efficient, and climate-resilient public spending in agriculture can accelerate change and unleash growth. Not only does agricultural public spending in Sub-Saharan Africa lag behind other developing regions but its impact is vitiated by subsidy programs and transfers that tend to benefit elites to the detriment of poor people and the agricultural sector itself. Shortcomings in the budgeting processes also reduce spending effectiveness. In light of this scenario, addressing the quality of public spending and the efficiency of resource use becomes even more important than addressing only the level of spending. Improvements in the policy environment, better institutions, and investments in rural public goods positively affect agricultural productivity. These, combined with smarter use of public funds, have helped lay the foundations for agricultural productivity growth around the world, resulting in a wealth of important lessons from which African policy makers and development practitioners can draw. 'Reaping Richer Returns: Public Spending Priorities for African Agriculture Productivity Growth' will be of particular interest to policy makers, development practitioners, and academics. The rigorous analysis presented in this book provides options for reform with a view to boosting the productivity of African agriculture and eventually increasing development impact.

This paper examines whether the consensus reached by the late 2000s among African Union member countries and their external partners on the need to reverse the decades-long decline in spending for essential public goods and services in agriculture has begun to result inimproved levels and quality of national expenditure programs for the sector. It synthesizes evidence from 20 Agriculture Public Expenditure Reviews (Ag PERs) that have been carried out in countries in Africa South of the Saharan (Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Rwanda, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia) with World Bank assistance during 2009–2015. This synthesis focuses on several measures: (1) the level of expenditures on agriculture, with particular reference to the explicit target by African heads of state in the 2003 Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security (reconfirmed in the Malabo Declaration) to allocate 10 percent of national budgets to the sector; (2) the composition and priorities of expenditures with respect to stated national strategies, evidence of impact, and sustainability; and (3) budget planning and implementation that aims to strengthen public financial management in general, and budget coherence, outputs, outcomes, and supporting mechanisms, such as procurement and audit, in particular. This paper uses Ag PERs to analyze budgetary trends across countries, identifies major expenditure issues, and synthesizes lessons regarding spending efficiency. The analysis results in evidence-based recommendations that address, inter alia, budget planning, budget execution, and monitoring for accountability; the creation of a reliable database; more effective intra-and intersectoral coordination; and the cost-effectiveness of different spending policies for meeting various objectives

Monitoring and analysing food and agriculture policies and their effects is crucial to support decision makers in developing countries to shape better policies that drive agricultural and food systems transformation. This report is a technical analysis of government spending data on food and agriculture during 2004–2018 in 13 sub-Saharan African countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. It analyses the level of public expenditure, including budget execution, source of funding and decentralized spending, as well as the composition of expenditure, including on producer or consumer support, research and development, infrastructure and more to reveal the trends and challenges that countries are facing. It also delves into the relationship between the composition of public expenditure and agricultural performance.As a way forward for future policymaking, the report offers a set of recommendations to strengthen policy monitoring systems and data generation for effective public investments in food and agriculture.The report is produced by the Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme at FAO in collaboration with MAFAP country partners.

"Agriculture and rural development must play a central role in stimulating economic growth, reducing poverty, and improving food and nutrition security in Africa. The food price crisis of 2007-08 highlighted the dramatic implications of world neglect of agricultural development over the past two decades. The current global economic recession now underscores the need for urgent attention to measures that could promote agricultural growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Agriculture in Africa has not performed as well as expected during the past few decades. Agricultural growth rates in the region have increased modestly from about 2.4 percent a year in 1980-89 to 2.7 percent in 1990-99 and 3.3 percent a year since 2000.1 Only a handful of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa--Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, and The Gambia--have surpassed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) threshold of 6 percent agricultural growth in recent years. Looking at poverty outcomes, whereas many developing regions, especially Asia and the Pacific, are on track to meet the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG 1) of halving poverty by 2015, progress in Sub-Saharan Africa has been slow. As a result, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the developing world expected to have more poor people in 2015 than it did in 1990. Public spending is one of the most direct and effective instruments that governments can use to promote agricultural growth and poverty reduction, yet public agricultural spending in Africa has historically been very low compared with that in other developing regions. In recent years many Sub-Saharan African countries have pledged to increase government support to agriculture in order to achieve the goal of 6 percent annual agricultural growth, set by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) through CAADP. As part of the Maputo Declaration of 2003, African heads of state agreed to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture. Yet many African governments are operating in an environment of scarce public resources, and so far only a few states have met these growth and spending targets. As African governments work to increase agricultural spending and boost agricultural growth, they face a dearth of information about which types of public investments contribute the most to development goals. How should scarce resources be allocated across different sectors of the economy--such as agriculture, infrastructure, health, and education--for maximizing development outcomes? Within agriculture, how should resources be allocated among, for instance, agricultural research, extension, irrigation, and input subsidies? In some cases African countries have clear principles on how to prioritize their scarce public resources, but they often lack the information needed to operationalize these principles. Drawing mainly on case studies from Africa, but also from Asia, this brief provides insights on the contributions of different types of spending to poverty, growth, and welfare outcomes in a variety of circumstances. These circumstances include, for example, Ethiopia's relatively large share of public spending allocated to agriculture, Nigeria's rich natural resource endowments, Ghana's relatively sound governance environment, Uganda's past success in economic growth and poverty reduction, and Tanzania's rapid transition from a planned to a market-driven economy." -- from Author's text.

Public Expenditures, Growth, and Poverty assesses the efficacy of poverty reduction programs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia by synthesizing studies conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute over the past ten years. Overall, the studies find that investments in agricultural research, infrastructure, and human capital are beneficial in the long term, while food aid and poverty reduction programs have little utility beyond immediately abating hunger and generating short-run income effects. The book develops a conceptual framework for analyzing public expenditures and their short- and long-run impact on poverty through various channels. It surveys spending trends and analyzes the effect of growing public investment on urban and rural poverty through case studies of India, China, Thailand, and Uganda. And it highlights the advantages of directing spending toward public works programs that engage impoverished peoples rather than using the limited aid money on food subsidies and other passive donations. Featuring discussions about the roles of various social safety net programs and a chapter devoted solely to the vexing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, Public Expenditures, Growth, and Poverty will aid policy makers and encourage further, more analytic study of worldwide poverty reduction programs.