Linking Africa’s Farms And Cities
As cities across Africa demand more abundant and affordable food supplies, local officials look for ways to improve systems that have always relied on personal relationships and cultural ties, not formal markets or government regulations. The citie...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/05/12384844/linking-africas-farms-cities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9843 |
| Summary: | As cities across Africa demand more
abundant and affordable food supplies, local officials look
for ways to improve systems that have always relied on
personal relationships and cultural ties, not formal markets
or government regulations. The cities of Sub-Saharan Africa
some of the fastest growing in the world face potentially
serious dilemmas in supplying their populations with food.
Over the past two decades, the continent's agricultural
exports have declined while imports have risen sharply. Over
the same period, food shortages and increasing prices have
spawned strong political protests, notably in heavily
urbanized countries such as Cote d'Ivoire and Zambia.
Strengthening the connections between consumers in cities
and the over 70 percent of Africans who depend on
agriculture for their livelihood is considered by many
experts to be one of the most important and formidable
challenges facing Africa today. In most parts of the
continent, the link between farm and marketplace is neither
direct or easily understood; distribution systems are
frequently obtuse and inefficient, held together by personal
relationships, private marketing networks and unregulated transactions. |
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