1887

Business for Development 2008

Promoting Commercial Agriculture in Africa

image of Business for Development 2008

The changing pattern of international agricultural trade has profound implications for Africa. The book’s authors discuss these trade flows, map the corporate landscape of agro-food, (including the emergent indigenous sector), and assess trends in international development co-operation in the corporate sector. Particular focus is given to “aid for trade” programmes that try to foster private-sector development and trade-capacity building. A final chapter, drawing lessons from five country case studies, provides evidence of the (in)effectiveness of government intervention and donor programmes to promote the marketing of African agriculture.

English Also available in: French

Mapping Business

Agro-Food Entreprises in africa

OECD Development Centre

The global agro-food supply chain is controlled by a small number of large enterprises, fewer than half of which have activities on site in Africa. Within the continent, a greater number of local enterprises shape the agro-food sector. Based on corporate rankings provided by Fortune Global 500 and Jeune Afrique Les 500 published in 2007, this chapter draws a map of the corporate landscape of the major agro-food-related enterprises in Africa, both foreign and domestic, and discusses broad trends. The corporate behaviour of these large players varies across regions. The majority of firms tend to concentrate their activities in the Northern and Southern regions of the continent. However, several individual countries in other regions also show significant potential in the agro-food sector. Countries attracting the biggest number of companies include South Africa, Morocco and Nigeria. The size of target economies matters. In some sub-sectors, the integration of African agro-food enterprises into the global supply chain has begun its timid climb. Initial stages of collaboration between foreign and local firms are notable in the beverage and tobacco industries. In other sectors, African enterprises have started to seek opportunities beyond their domestic frontiers and even outside the continent. This chapter attempts to fill the gap in empirical work on agro-food enterprises in Africa and to provide a picture of the continent’s corporate map.

English Also available in: French

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error