Africa's Structural Transformation Challenge and the Role of Agriculture: Is China a Player? A Review of Chinese Initiatives in Rural Africa

• Published date: 01 March 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18278/wfp.2.1.1
• Author: Ward Anseeuw,Jean‐Jacques Gabas,Bruno Losch
• Date: 01 March 2015

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World Food Policy - Volume 2, Number 1 - Spring 2015

This paper positions itself at

the crossroads of three major

observations related to Africa’s

structural transformation challenge.

Firstly, over the last years African

economies have been praised for their

robust growth rates which oer positive

perspectives for economic development

and private investment and suggest a

process of catching-up with the rest of

the world. However, the quality of this

growth is a growing issue because it has

a very limited impact on poverty and

does not translate so far in a progressive

structural transformation of African

economies.

Secondly, the role of agriculture

with regards the continent’s structural

transformation is to be considered.

For many countries with an important

rural population and where agriculture

continues to count in major aggregates

and livelihoods, rural and agricultural

transformation is of course central to this

agenda. More globally, it is also viewed

as a necessary step to answer the food

security challenge of a 9-plus billion

people world expected in 2050 and to

e objective of this paper is to discuss Africa’s structural transformation, its food

and employment challenges, in light of renewed dynamics, more particularly

China’s involvement in the continent’s agricultural sector. Data is scarce and

oen very contradictory, but what becomes evident is that China’s role in

agriculture in Africa, and particularly related to the land grab phenomenon,

is not as signicant as initially put to the fore. China promotes an uncertain

“aid, business, and trade” model where the “business and trade” components

seem to increasingly take the lead and which are oen disconnected from the

characteristics of the African context. As such, the paper, besides highlighting

the lasting importance of the rural sector for food security and poverty

alleviation in a context of Africa’s limited economic diversication, it suggests

possible stronger Chinese contribution to the policy debate through experience

sharing and dialogue within Africa and at the global level.

Keywords: Africa, China, structural transformation, agriculture, employment.

Ward Anseeuw, A Jean-Jacques GabasB and Bruno LoschB

Africa’s Structural Transformation Challenge and the

Role of Agriculture: Is China a Player?

A Review of Chinese Initiatives in Rural Africa

A Ward Anseeuw is a researcher at the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique

pour le Développement (Cirad), ArtDev research unit, seconded to the University of Pretoria.

B Jean-Jacques Gabas and Bruno Losch are researchers at Cirad, ArtDev research unit.