[See earlier posts on what we want from the G8 here and here.]

One main thing we’re asking the G8 to commit to this year is a comprehensive plan focused on boosting food security and agricultural productivity in Africa. Growing concern over rising food prices helped get these issues onto the summit agenda, and ONE has been working to make sure that a concrete action plan comes out of this discussion.

Three-quarters of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and most rely on agriculture to feed themselves and their families. Many of these people (especially in Africa) cannot grow enough to eat or sell, and have trouble accessing markets that would help them get better prices for their goods. Solving these complex problems requires a dual-pronged approach: firstly, immediate assistance for those in need in the form of food, seeds, and fertilizer; secondly, long-term improvements in agricultural technology, infrastructure, and improved irrigation techniques to generate sustainable agricultural growth.

At past summits, the G8 has stressed the central role that agriculture plays in African development, yet G8 countries have made few commitments to increase funding for Africa’s farmers. As a result, Africa’s agricultural sector has been seriously under-funded in the past 15 years- the percentage of official development assistance that went to agriculture fell from over 16% in 1980 to under 4% in 2004.

In light of the current food crisis and the historic neglect of the agricultural sector, we’re asking the G8 to commit to both long and short-term solutions to boost food security and agricultural productivity. Here are ONE’s three top-line agriculture asks:

• Coordinate urgent needs and global goods: To meet immediate needs for seeds and fertilizer and also longer-term needs for things like research, donors should establish a central body that would coordinate efforts and also identify funding gaps and the resources to fill them.

• Create a central mechanism to coordinate funding for countries’ agricultural plans. Donor support for scaled-up investment in agriculture should be modelled after similar efforts in health and education – where African countries have developed comprehensive, technically vetted plans for developing their agriculture sector, donors should step in to fill the financing gaps to fund the plans. Investments by donors will be paired with resources from African countries, as part of an African commitment to devote 10% of their national budgets to agriculture.
• Dedicate the funding needed to transform Africa’s agricultural sector. Currently global funding for African agriculture is grossly inadequate- $2bn a year. Most estimates of what is needed to pursue an agricultural transformation in Africa suggest an additional annual investment of $9-13 billion over the next 15-20 years. African governments have committed to spending 10% of their national budgets on agriculture, which could yield an $5 billion to this effort and leave an external financing gap of $4-8 billion. The G8 should work with the rest of the donor community to design fill this gap.

Together, these three commitments would not only provide much-needed funding to the agricultural sector, but would also build a structure to allow African countries and G8 donors to work together to develop country-specific plans to improve agricultural productivity and food security. Both short-term and long-term solutions are needed and G8 commitments are essential to make them a reality.

-Sara Rogge, ONE Policy staff