Agricultural transformation and agribusiness in Africa: how can jobs for women and youth be created?
In preparation for a side-event on the African Development Bank (ADB) annual meetings, the INCLUDE Platform launched a series of one pagers on Africa’s agricultural transformation and how it can be made inclusive for women and youth. This one pager introduces the concepts of agricultural transformation and agribusiness and identifies the key challenges in making both inclusive. The series of one pagers assess how an inclusiveness lens can best be applied. It does so in the form of four briefs on the most pressing issues of inclusive agribusiness: 1) Job opportunities for youth in Africa’s agricultural transformation (in collaboration with the F&BKP); 2) What works to empower women in agriculture; 3) The role of inclusive value chains for women and youth in Africa’s agricultural transformation; 4) The importance of social protection for Africa’s agricultural transformation. The series concludes with the one pager ‘A policy agenda for inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa’, containing INCLUDE’s recommendations for an inclusive policy agenda on Africa’s agricultural transformation. Important conclusion from the one pager is that it remains to be seen if agribusiness will be the panacea for Africa’s agricultural transformation. More importantly, can agribusiness lead to inclusive transformation, as structural transformation and inclusive development do not always go hand-in-hand, particularly if a lens of inclusiveness is not applied. Inclusive development and wellbeing need to be incorporated into goals for agricultural transformation, particularly as agricultural transformation is more likely to be successful when focused on inclusiveness.