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Note d’ analyses sociopolitiques, N° 06| Janvier 2019
CARPADD
Centre africain de recherche pour la paix et le développement durable
A
Political Instability in Africa
Impacts on Agricultural Value Chains
Stéphanie M. E. MVODO
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness
Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
University of Buea, SWR, Cameroon
Mvodostephanie@gmail.com
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formation et le transfert des connaissances dans les domaines de la paix, de l’aménagement,
du développement durable, des migrat ions, des crises et conflits, de l’autonomisation des
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Pour citer ce texte :
MVODO, M.E. Stéphanie, « Political Instability in Africa : impacts on Agricultural Value
Chains », Note d’ analyses sociopolitiques, N° 06, 07 Janvier 2019, CARPADD,
Montréal.
CARPADD | Note d’analyses sociopolitiques N° 06, Jan 2019 | www.carpadd.com
1
Abstract
Africa has known a good number of conflicts and
some are currently going on. Instability leads to
limited political freedom and limited social
advantages such as food, health, education and
shelter. For the past seven years, African conflicts
have generated over 9 million refugees and
Internally Displaced People (IDP). Thousands of
people have seen their living conditions hardly
disturbed due to conflicts and instability. Food and
Nutrition have an iterative relationship with conflict
as both can cause each other; also, both have
impacts on the balance of trade and development
indicators. Efficient agricultural value chains create
competitiveness and accelerate industrialisation.
Though they have the ability to advance economic
partnership and competition, in most African
countries, agricultural value chains remain
underdeveloped and underexploited; moreover,
they are hardly affected by political instability with
direct consequences on society. Regional
integration with many spill-over, affects agriculture,
while food prices and countries’ macroeconomic
policies affects food security. Recommendations
are made to put in place strong conflict prevention
indicators, efficient and sustainable conflicts
resolutions, regional integration facilities with larger
market coverage, equitable allocation of resources
among populations, effective human capital and
mobility improvement, applied agricultural research
and related activities development, effective
production and manufacturing diversification, and,
increased domestic saving as well as investment
increase.
Key words: Political Instability, Conflicts,
Agricultural Value Chains, Food Security, Africa
RETURN OF THE PLANTATIONS
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Résumé
L'Afrique a connu un bon nombre de conflits et
certains se poursuivent actuellement. L’instabilité
limite la liberté politique et les avantages sociaux
tels que la nourriture, la santé, l'éducation et le
logement. Au cours des sept dernières années, les
conflits africains ont généré plus de 9 millions de
réfugiés et de personnes déplacées. Des milliers
de personnes ont vu leurs conditions de vie
perturbées par les conflits et l'instabilité.
L'alimentation et la nutrition ont une relation
itérative avec le conflit, car chacun peut causer
l’autre ; de plus, les deux ont des effets sur la
balance de commerce et les indicateurs de
développement. Des chaînes de valeurs agricoles
efficaces créent une compétitivité et accélèrent
l'industrialisation. Bien qu'elles soient en mesure de
faire progresser le partenariat et la concurrence
économique, dans la plupart des pays africains, les
chaînes de valeurs agricoles restent sous-
développées et sous-exploitées; de plus, elles sont
très affectées par l'instabilité politique, avec des
conséquences directes sur la société. L'intégration
régionale avec de nombreuses retombées, affecte
l'agriculture, les prix alimentaires et les politiques
macroéconomiques des pays affectent la sécurité
alimentaire. Les recommandations faites sont : la
mise en place des indicateurs pour la prévention
des conflits, l’adoption des résolutions de conflits
efficaces et durables, l’intégration régionale ayant
une plus grande couverture du marché, la
répartition équitable des ressources entre
populations, l’amélioration du capital humain et de
sa mobilité, la recherche agricole appliquée et le
développement de ses activités, l'épargne
domestique et l'augmentation des investissements.
Mots clés: Instabilité Politique, Conflits, Chaines
de valeurs agricoles, Sécurité Alimentaire, Afrique
1. Introduction
Armed conflicts in Africa keep oscillating. Their
levels of violence and perpetration methods remain
different; recent elections in Uganda, Nigeria,
Kenya and Zimbabwe illustrate this well. Different
sources of information reveal that armed conflicts
peaked in 1990 and 1991 during the end of the
Cold War, a decline was noticed around 2005 and
2006; they stabilised in 2010 and 2011 to rise back
in 2015. Among these increases, Egypt, Sudan and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo were
classified among the top five countries of extreme
risk zone [1]. Specialists predict that Egypt and
Libya might experience high levels of dynamic
political risk for years to come; this come along with
many struggles. Improvements in the level of
governance and social indications can help lower
risk levels of instability. Most conflicts result in
limited democratic freedoms, inflation of food prices
and worse working conditions [2, 3, 4]. There is
negative relationship between Instability and
political freedom and, social gains. In 2010, prior to
the Arab Spring, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, Syria and
Egypt were among the countries with the biggest
divide between political freedoms and social gains
and this harshly affected their populations
according to the Institute for Security Studies [1].
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Political instability has been a constant piece of the
post-colonial setting in Africa. Some influencing
factors originate from political fights, Cold War,
ethnic antagonisms, rent-seeking behaviours, social
misunderstanding and injustice. Political instability
has become widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa.
From the early 1960s, when African countries
begun to obtain independence, more than fifty
coups have occurred [5, 6]. The results have been
detrimental to economic development. For Mbaku
[7], relationship between elite political instability and
economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa have
to be studied. Lack of political stability has
contributed significantly to economic stagnation in
the black continent. Most of its leaders want to
follow nation-building initiatives while legitimising
their hold of power and these are not always
complementary. Political measures adopted can
weaken the overall comfort of the country [2, 7, 8].
The immediate concern should be to create a
consensus in favour of efficient and social wellbeing
oriented systems. Tensions are expressed in terms
of ethnic, cultural and other kind of conflicts. The
major cause of problems is dispute of leadership.
And because of this, African freedom heroes
become dictators, while natural resources remain
wrongly exploited. Political instability in Africa
undermine the right procedure and society that are
expected to care for democracy and to inspire a
sense of stability for community development. In
combination poverty, disease, violence are thought
to emanate from the external interests targeting the
African natural resources [9, 10, 11].
Currently, there are ongoing conflicts in different
regions of the continent. Three years after the Arab
Spring, more than 60% of countries in the Middle
East and North Africa region have experienced a
significant rise in political violence, revealing that
forced regime are closely linked to long-term
political risks [12, 13]. In East African countries, the
risk of political violence, including terrorism and
poor governance is on the rise. Somalia, Sudan
and South Sudan are categorised as extreme risk
territories; Kenya and Ethiopia are termed “high
risk” and change of risk might occur in Eritrea,
Tanzania and Mozambique [1, 3, 7]. In the West,
the impact of the global financial crisis it noticeable
when we consider high levels of unemployment and
underemployment which is a crucial factor of
inequality and declining living standards. This state
of affairs is detrimental for business to flourish and
attract foreign investors.
For African states to attract Foreign Direct
Investments (FDI), they should ensure political
stability. Foreign investments will flow and improve
many sectors of the economy through qualified
products and markets, upgraded employments and
industries, as well as technologies transfer. Results
can easily be visible thanks to efficient value
chains. Political stability is a solid background
which guarantees peace, availability of skills labour,
development of the private sector, building of
infrastructure facilities and stable macroeconomic
performance [9, 11, 13, 15]. Taking the case of
Tanzania, this East African harbour enjoys
economic and political stability, which continue to
attract several FDI in many sectors (Mining,
beverage, and telecommunications). The
government of Tanzania dedicates higher portion of
the country’s budget to education specifically the
development of training specialists, human
capacities and technology transfer as preconditions
for enhancing productivity. The country’s private
sector has transformed the economy, as building
infrastructures figure among key investment
drivers. These have been preconditions for its
constant stable macroeconomic performance.
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Despite demotivated predictions and some hard
times experienced by a few countries, also
considering challenges posed by poverty and
diseases, most African economies are thriving; trade
quantities and foreign investments have increased
over time. Though international trade in Africa been
hardly influenced by corruption, trade laws, political
conflicts and instability. Some authors find
opportunities in political instability such as conflict
resolution and peace building initiatives [13, 14, 16,
17]. If these apply, then inflation and debt will reduce
while factors of production increase.
In January 2000, over half of the countries in Africa
were affected by conflicts. These resulted in high
number of life loss, massive population movements;
economic indicators were hardly hit and this
seriously hamper the development of the continent.
Clearly, efficient solutions are needed to reduce
people and goods destruction and address global
security risk [16]. To properly understand causes of
African conflicts, the evaluation should consider
local, regional and international determinants.
Among background factors we have colonialism, the
Cold War and the new World Order; complemented
by social, political and economic inequalities.
Secondary causes originate from ideas and aspects
which enable and sustain conflicts among which
unemployment, lack of education, population
pressure, ethnic hatred and availability of arms.
Tertiary causes are those which hinder resolutions
originating from complexity due to interlocking
conflicts; resolutions not properly consolidated;
inadequate mediation/communication and
inappropriate humanitarian assistance [9, 11, 13].
Responsible investment in areas of natural resource
wealth, appropriate mediation that can foster stable
and equitable political structures and support to
African peace-keeping capacities remain
commendable. Appropriate humanitarian
interventions that effectively access those in need
and supported by political and judicial actions are
also recommended.
According to Kieh [3], the peripheral capitalist
African state is the primary source of political
instability on the continent. Specifically, the
peripheral capitalist state has generated various
crises such as poor regime that provoke political
instability. Also, since the peripheral capitalist
African state is a product and supplement of the
global capitalist system, the latter contributes to
instability in the former. Hence, in order to tackle the
vulnerability of political stability, the peripheral
capitalist African state must be democratically
reconstituted, and fundamental changes have to be
carried out in the global capitalist political economy.
Fosu [9] questions how human development can be
guaranteed through economic performance during
political instability. For him frequent coups d'état in
sub-Saharan Africa negatively affect human
development. There is a need to uncover origins and
causes of political instability in Africa and their
impacts on agricultural value chains, and this
constitute the aim of this paper.
In the agricultural sector, there are numerous
drawbacks linked to inexistent or inefficient value
chains. Some causes identified are: absence of farm
to market roads, inadequate means of
transportation, limited storage and warehouse
facilities. At the regional and sub-regional levels, the
problem escalates. African mostly trade with other
continents while its intra-trade remains undeveloped
even as many comparative trade advantages exist
among states. This situation results in African
continent being highly dependent for its diversified
supplies (drugs, foods, clothes, furniture and
services).
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The inefficiency of agricultural value chains leads to
many post-harvest losses and the few existing
always get harshly impacted during conflict or
instability. Impacts are later on felt in food, nutrition,
human capital, natural resources supply and the
overall impact affect countries’ economic and social
indicators.
2. Political instability pods and food
security concerns
There have been over 9 million refugees and IDP
from conflicts in Africa [19] these recent years.
Thousands of people have lost lives in a good
number of conflicts and civil wars. In the middle of
2011, the world’s worst food crisis hit East Africa
(Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya) caused by failed
rains, in a continent where crop farming still heavily
depends on rain not considering the increased
alarm ranged by climate change experts [6, 12, 16].
The situation, predicted months ago, was avoidable.
The situation resulted in high food prices which
could not be sustained by many people and led to
tensions and upheavals. The situation placed more
than 12 million people in high need of food, clean
water, and basic sanitation. Available labour force
was reduced by massive killing and many
pastoralist communities were affected. A wave of
protests followed throughout the Middle East and
North Africa. Originating from a combination of the
global financial crisis, rising costs of living, high
unemployment, especially of educated youth,
frustration from decades of living under
authoritarian and corrupt regimes among others [19,
20].
Some protests led to revolutions as they overthrew
governments. Others did not go far, some have
been peaceful, while other met with brutal
repression. The launched wave of democracy is
hard to stop and unfortunately affect many aspects
of community life among which the supply chains of
basic utilities such as food [8, 13, 15].
Causes of instability have been diverse. The
Democratic Republic of Congo has witnessed
recurrent conflicts about basic resources and
various political agenda, in Nigeria, the Delta of
Niger Oil is a recurrent stability threat, while in the
past, Sierra Leone fought over diamond, Ethiopia
and Eritrea about the latter independence and its
currency while Rwanda battled with ancient tribal
hatreds. When we look at the 17 ongoing
humanitarian crises worldwide, we find several
occurring in Africa: Libya, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali,
the Central African Republic, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South
Sudan [17, 18, 19, 20, 21]. Across East and West
Africa, reports highlight food security as a priority
throughout. Access to portable water, sanitation
infrastructure, proper health facilities and
humanitarian access to affected communities are
also limited.
Displacement across conflict-affected areas in
Africa directly impacts a range of social, political,
and economic process, and diminishes current
development gains on the continent. During the first
six months of 2017, about 2.7 million people were
newly displaced, and there is an equivalent of
15,000 people forced from their homes daily [22,
23]. Roughly three-quarters of those were allegedly
due to conflict and violence. With disrupted markets
and reduced access to economic activities such as
distributions channels, high levels of malnutrition,
exacerbated poverty levels, and environmental
degradation.
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Spread of malnutrition and illness is striking the
lack Chad Basin due to Boko Haram conflict. After
nine years since its initial insurgency, the conflict
that affect Northeast Nigeria, Southeast Niger,
Western Chad, far North Niger and Cameroon has
impacted more than 17 million people; 10.9 million
of which are in high need of humanitarian aid. In
2018, food security, remain priority concerns, and
aid is limited to major cities [18, 24]. Food
insecurity touches 7.2 million people. This is partly
caused by food unavailability at local markets as
results of dysfunctional agricultural values chains.
This makes raids on food very common. Continued
violence and unrest in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic
might escalate in the coming months; and the need
for food, shelter and protection of about 7.5 million
in DRC alone will increase. The country has, in the
world, the highest number of people displaced due
to conflict. In Mali, robberies and intimidation
incidents to local communities’ dwellers have
drastically reduce agricultural production and affect
supply of food stuff in markets [4, 5, 9, 12]. This
also impact agro-inputs sector. The porous borders
with Northern Burkina Faso and Western Niger
where constant sporadic attacks occur will
increase the need for food security and access to
farm inputs in that part of the continent as well.
In Sudan and South Sudan, 3.8 million people
countrywide are food insecure. Internal
displacement also limit access to normal economic
activities. Protection, nutrition, and health remain
priorities in 2018. In August 2017, the cost of staple
foods such as maize and sorghum were twice as
high compared to the same time during 2016.
Rising fuel prices continue to influence mobility in
agriculture. Spurred criminality among civilians and
armed groups remain noticeable. In the Horn of
Africa, Peak violence has been noticed in Somalia,
as drought across the country worsened, internally
displacing 2 million people and exacerbating food
insecurity for more than half the country’s
population [16, 18]. Weather previsions predict
poor rainfalls across East Africa region, and the
impacts will be felt by both Somalian and Ethiopian
food sectors. Poor harvests, livestock losses, and
rising food costs will continue to reduce purchasing
power and access to nutritious meals of many and
unmet humanitarian need will continue to decrease
community resilience.
3. Impacts of instability on agricultural
value chains
The question of how regional integration can
advance global value chains to accelerate
economic growth and achieve food security remain
current. Tinta et al. [15] set the challenge by asking
what is preferable between countries developing
strategies to raise international trade or adopt
policies reinforcing regional trade. The authors
support regional integration needs which
strengthen and better promote the stimulation of
each country’s potential to move from
discontinuous to sustained growth. They conclude
that international trade is not the better solution for
West African countries to boost economic growth.
Food security and economic growth constitute two
challenges of contemporary economy in
developing countries. As far as food security is
concerned, there is an African say which state that:
“a hungry man is an angry man” anger constitutes
an origin of some conflicts. States should work
hard to feed their populations, food and nutrition
remains a very sensitive issue as it is entangled
with sociological and anthropological
considerations.
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Economic growth remains the most important
indicator used worldwide to rank, evaluate and
deal with any country. It should be the utmost
goal of each nation to insure that it depicts
improvement of living conditions. Illustration
affirms that low economic growth rate, weak
industrial development and growing poverty
characterise African countries due to poor human
development, growing population living in urban
slums with no access to elementary services,
raise of corruption are disadvantages in global
trade [4, 8, 9, 14].
In the case of West Africa, the GDP per capita
increased very slowly; $954 in 2010, $1,051 in
2011, $1,057 in 2012, and $1,137 in 2014; in the
meantime, other developing countries and the
world experienced notable progress in reducing
extreme poverty [15]. The economic growth rate
in African countries has always been too low to
sustain any development process. Subsequently,
the erratic growth performance of African
countries constitute one important reason behind
its lagging position in eradicating poverty.
Factors such as (long distances from markets,
geographical fragmentation, tropical climates and
soils, small markets, demographic pressure,
natural resource curse, aid, external economic
shocks vulnerability, weak institutional capacity,
low financial sector and information technology,
risks and uncertainty of policies and political
instability) are main dangers in achieving growth.
These factors through different channels, can
address regionalism transparency, innovation,
sound policies and effective leadership. Regional
integration offers enormous opportunities to
boost economic growth.
Regional integration by enlarging the size of the
market stimulates the efficient allocation of
resources, increases human capital and mobility
of labour, develops agricultural research and
development related activities, diversifies
production and improves manufacturing sector,
increases domestic saving and investment,
improves infrastructure and reduce the need for
foreign debt. Moreover, it creates
competitiveness and accelerate industrialisation,
it offers better employment opportunities which
reduce poverty in the region. African economies
are not strongly advanced in global value chains
and this remains a crucial asset in the equation.
Efficient agricultural value chains enable to
create comparative advantage and foster
economic partnerships [1, 5, 6].
Food security is hardly affected by agricultural
trade. When there is an increase in the income-
earning capacities of the poor, this enhance
access to food. Rising intra-regional agricultural
trade enable the promotion of food security and
augment domestic food supplies which improve
consumption needs and diversity at both
household and national levels. Macroeconomic
policies play significant roles in influencing food
security directly or indirectly by affecting poverty,
food production, prices, foreign exchange,
employment, and wages. Integration is a better
tool to address food security challenge because
of the opportunities targeting trade and market
integration, investment in agricultural resources,
investment in agricultural and trade
infrastructure, sophistication in improved
agriculture technologies, reduction of domestic
and foreign policy distortions, and economies of
scale [11, 14, 15]. It is well-recognised that
integration greatly affects agricultural sector
performance by stabilizing food prices,
strengthening regional market and reducing
dependence on International market.
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It improve exports and decrease imports which in
turn influence the countries income distribution,
rural development, employment creation and
competitiveness of the economy. It ensures the
development of technologies against bad
harvests or natural disasters. Consequently, all
these channels target malnutrition, hunger, and
famine; they seek to create an enabling
environment that increase consumption and
improve population nutritional well-being which
directly addresses poverty reduction.
The impact of regional integration on food
security goes beyond food and agriculture
dimension alone. It includes non-agricultural
economy that has various implications on
countries’ trade policy. Global value chains being
in infant stage in most African countries, this
sector presents many potentials oriented to
regional trade value chains promotion on food
security. But this will only be possible if political
stability is in the equation and well safeguarded.
4. The impact of regional integration
and international trade on food
security
Food security is linked to regional integration’s
capability to rise global supply of the production
(through a mixture of external and internal
production) which stabilize variations in food
prices. Opening up the economy lessens the
unpredictability of staple foods supply by helping
the outside to absorb the excess production and
reduce the effects of shocks. Market prices affect
food accessibility and are affected by the
country’s purchasing power. Per capita dietary
energy supply is adopted to measure the food
availability which approximates food security.
For international trade to motivate countries,
interactions must be done among countries of
same calibre. Also, opening to international trade
is not a necessary and sufficient condition to
increase economic growth, other factors such as
infrastructure, investment, comparative
advantages, industrial development, protectionist
policies, and technology progress need to be
effective not forgetting the political stability. Many
of these factors are integral components of value
chains, and in many African countries, those
factors are barely existing [11, 13]. In the African
Economic regions, intra-trade is low and hardly
affects the concerned countries.
In 2015, intra-community trade within West Africa
was only 9% [15]. It is clear that if trade
agreements are put in place, the impact will be
different for producers and households. These
crucial stakeholders will fill the impacts in terms of
income, investment and consumption. Trade
between many South Sahara African Countries
and the rest of the world is characterized by
export of primary products mainly agricultural
goods and services, raw materials and imports of
foods and foodstuffs coming from Asian countries.
Expansion and diversification of agricultural
products along with their value chains generate
opportunities for people in the region and raise
rural incomes which allow rural and urban
households to access adequate and nutritious
food. Consequently, a joint effect of integration
and value chains boosts food security. Value
chains need to be implemented across countries
and sectors, and the countries’ development
program must highly target this goal. The
incidence of political instability negatively affects
food security. Political instability creates an
unfavourable condition on food security through
the decrease of investment and its impact on food
supply from domestic production.
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Growth in food production is associated with an
increase in national food security. An enabling
environment needs to be created by African
countries to encourage producers by increasing
domestic consumption, improving the areas of
farm household, making them able to cope with
risk, uncertainty and sources of technical change,
and raise industrial development to make food
cheaper. Also, some measures must be taken by
governments to improve market efficiency such
as communications, transportation, storage
facilities, and legal codes to enforce contracts,
credit availability to finance short-run stocks and
processing operations, a market information
system to keep all market participants from
farmers to consumers fairly and accurately
informed about market trends.
The amount of foreign reserves contributes to
food security. Foreign reserves enhance the
ability of food importation of countries and are a
channel to buy the capital equipment to
accelerate production and achieve self-
sufficiency. Farm land is a great determinant as
well; the more households have access to land,
the more food production and availability increase
and returns for many stakeholders working in
different value chain stages.
5. Integrating farmers into agricultural
value chains using investment:
Tanzania’s case
The Tanzanian case is used in this paper to
portray how the efficient increase of investments
in different stages of the agricultural value chains
has tremendously improved the country’ regional
trade and reinforced the nation’s stability.
Tanzania has attracted in recent years, many
Foreign Direct Investments. The country
continues to build its political stability and
economic development. It has an annual growth
rate of 7%, ranking it the fastest growing country
in East Africa [25]. In previous years, Tanzanian
farmers similar to their continental peers have
faced numerous drawbacks hindering their
exploitation of the agricultural advantage offered
by the country’s favourable landscape,
geographical location, and access to a major port
city, Dar es Salaam. The African Union’s
Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development
Programme (CAADP) [25, 26] set the African
agriculture backbone from which the government
of Tanzania extracted its 6% target, but the
agricultural sector hardly met this target due to
poor productivity. To improve the situation, the
Tanzanian government adopted and implemented
various policies to enhance investment and kindle
growth in the country’s agricultural sector, with
the aim of ensuring increase in the socio-
economic indicators of smallholder farmers.
The country used investment as a tool to boost
farmers’ integration into larger and different value
chains. Infrastructures (roads, railways, irrigation,
and power) represented one fundamental
structural challenges. Infrastructures facilitate
access to larger markets, improve the quality of
produce, and enable moving up the value chain
into agro-processing activities. Tanzania has
focused at implementing an investor-friendly
environment which is development-focused with
farmers holding the first position. As a result, the
Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), has applied
important measures to attract investors’ interest
in the country’s agricultural sector. These
measures include among other things: tax-
friendly provisions for foreign and local investors
for a minimum investment of $500,000 in capital
for foreign investors and $100,000 in capital for
local investors.
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Tax-free periods for the first five years of business
operations which allow businesses to grow during
their inception period, with the long-term goal of
generating profits and thereafter expanding their
operations.
The TIC has created precautions to ensure farmers
mostly benefit from investment gains in the
agricultural sector. These measures include
mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
conditions for both local and foreign investors that
have been incorporated into investment agreements
on a sector-by-sector basis. As part of these CSR
provisions in the agricultural sector, investors are
obligatory to contribute towards the land tenure
security of smallholder farmers, develop local
community infrastructure through their projects, and
encourage joint ventures between themselves and
local communities. Through its Business Linkages
Programme, Tanzania provides training on quality
issues to more than 200 small and medium
enterprises and encourages links between
smallholder cooperatives and international
companies. In 2011, the government partnered with
AirTel to enable the transmission of market-related
information to farmers. For farmers located in rural
areas with little access to larger markets, receiving
market prices through their mobile phones is an
effective way to ensure they are well informed,
minimise their reliance on middlemen, and
ultimately empower them to be active participants
when selling their produce. Problems surrounding
“doing business” conditions, land ownership, and
existing tax regimes continue to exist, thereby
limiting the prospects for greater investment and
private sector participation. These measures have
tremendously improved the agricultural value chains
of the country.
The socio-economic development of Tanzanian
farmers is the World Bank’s Southern Agricultural
Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative,
which involves a wide range of partners and is
characterised by its Public-Private Partnership
“mega-PPP” status. In this project, land allocations
of between 3,000 and 50,000 hectares have been
reserved for leasing to investors, with the land
surrounding these parcels reserved for smallholder
farmers. Investors will come along with services,
infrastructure, and inputs as they undertake agro-
processing initiatives and agricultural production
under the project. As a result, smallholder farmers
are expected to benefit from better access to larger
markets, and improved inputs, extension services,
and irrigation. These will help them to improve
farming methods and boost their outputs [26].
In general, the tax regime appears to be largely
problematic for many actors throughout agricultural
value chains and requires a renovation. PPPs can
be utilised for the long-term sustenance of projects
and the incorporation of farmers into larger value
chains through training, up skilling, and agro-
processing initiatives. Implementing non-
protectionist policies that harness the producing
potential of smallholder farmers through inclusion in
domestic value chains can also help simplify entry
in regional markets. Such measures could include
enhancing farmers’ competitiveness, improving
labour productivity, and upgrading technical
knowledge. Promoting linkages to regional markets
can help smallholder producers to comprehend the
importance of producing high-quality produce for
export that would derive higher profits for them.
Many of these reforms have been possible given
the political stability existing in Tanzania and
regional integration in East Africa.
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6. Common Challenges Facing
Farmers in Conflict Zones
There are a number of challenges commonly faced
by farmers living in countries which experience
conflicts. One of the biggest challenges faced by
the crop, livestock and agricultural services value
chains is reduction in human mobility. The
agriculture sector requires farm labourers to travel
to fields. Often, during instability, they are exposed
to attacks by insurgents (militants, nationalists or
jihadists). Markets where agricultural products are
bought and sold are also targets due to the amount
of money and appropriable products exchanging
hands. Livestock markets such as cattle or camel
markets are usually under threat of attack given
that the unit cost per animal is very high. Despite
these drawbacks, some farmers remain capable of
maintaining their agricultural investments and
demonstrate resilience to the conflict situations. By
so doing, they continue feeding nations against all
odds. Though they can do, the different value
chains along with their distribution channels are
really impacted.
Conclusion
Considering the international trade and the
balance of payments, it is sustained that stable
political environment influences export
performance via competitiveness, and play a
crucial role in export and overall growth, this is
only possible if efficient functional value chains are
existing on ground. In recent years, political
violence has emerged as the most common
method of governmental change. In Sub-Saharan
Africa, political instability is a significant constraint
to the improvement of the human condition in the
region. Around 37% of Africans live in extreme
poverty. By 2030, around 548 million of Africans
are likely to live in extreme poverty, and youth 15-
29 years are the most affected by these figures.
Poverty and youth make Africa turbulent. But the
continent is growing and remain dynamic.
Inequalities are rampant as growth does not
translate into poverty reduction. To reduce this and
create more jobs, Africa needs average growth
rates of 7%. Instability disrupt development but
presents at the same time opportunities. What is
needed is efficient planning. Governments have to
put in place highly functional distributions channels
with enabling business environments to guarantee
stability. Youth, mostly carrying instability activities
can be employed in numerous careers
opportunities, offered by values chains (transport,
storage, processing, labelling, packaging,
inventory management, services, communication,
marketing, etc.). Violence will remain a
characteristic of a number of countries for many
years to come and Africa should plan accordingly.
In the long term, only rapid inclusive economic
growth combined with good governance can
reduce or eliminate the structural drivers of
violence. Much more international and regional
cooperation are required as part a factor of the
process, including substantive and scaled up
support for peacekeeping.
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