A "Green Revolution" in Africa: What Framework for Success?

"Toward a 'Green Revolution' in Africa?" is a Project of the Salzburg Global Seminar, the Institute of Development Studies and the Future Agricultures Consortium. The Project, through a series of interconnected events, seeks to:

• Enable proposals for a "green revolution" in sub-Saharan Africa to be tested and refined through deliberations between a wide range of experts, including those concerned by current directions, from different sectors and regions. This approach will help proponents of a "green revolution" to think it through carefully and from multiple perspectives, provide opportunity for constructive dialogue with critics, and ensure that efforts proceed within a broad policy framework, taking into account institutional, political, socio-economic, and technical prerequisites.
• Better define a holistic development framework within which new investments in African agriculture can be positioned, streamlined with other new and existing development investments, and help stimulate further investments (monetary and other), ultimately reducing poverty and increasing sustainable economic growth and opportunity.

There is a clear need for a new vision for agricultural development in Africa that can deal with the complexities of agriculture in diverse settings across Africa and meet the conditions necessary to achieve more equitable benefits for Africa's farmers. But whose vision should - and will - this be? How can complexity and diversity be dealt with? What lessons can be extracted from recent successes in African agricultural development and how can recent growth be sustained, expanded, and accelerated?
How can new investments and actors in African agriculture support efforts to align policies and political processes to support agricultural as well as broader development goals? How can innovation systems be made robust, relevant and sustainable? How can the hardware of science and technology be linked to the software of institutions, policy and social dynamics? How should agricultural science and technology in Africa be governed?

At the heart of these, and the many additional, critical questions are two overarching ones:

1. How can new interest and investment in African agriculture be used to bring about real and sustainable change; and
2. How can these efforts be aligned strategically with other investments and development activities (be they from private donors, public aid, or private business) and new strategic alliances and partnerships be created to ensure success?

In recent years, African farmers and policy-makers have achieved a series of significant successes in agricultural development, although these successes are still inadequate in number and scale to counter sub-Saharan Africa's considerable economic, social, and political challenges - and to take full advantage of the considerable human capital and resources available. The Project is exploring common ingredients and processes that have led to the emergence and persistence of successes, as well as ways that policy-makers translate these lessons into improved performance. By examining instances in which important advances have occurred in the past in African agriculture, the Project will aim to identify promising avenues for achieving similar success in the future.