As it is the case for all African nations, agriculture is a key economic activity in Benin––it employs over 40 percent of the workforce, accounts for 30 percent of GDP and represents a third of exports. As explained by UNDP Administrator Helen Clark during an official visit to Benin, developing agriculture constitutes the keystone of any policy to fight poverty and food insecurity. We are publishing below excerpts from the Administrator’s article1
. While this “new agricultural revolution” must be achieved through increased agricultural investment, youth training and research financing, it is also fundamental that the international governance implements more auspicious conditions to develop Africa’s agriculture and its integration in international markets. This issue was the topic of discussions between Benin President Yayi Boni and a momagri delegation visiting Benin in May 2006. During the meeting, the Beninese president and momagri indicated their willingness to work together in order to initiate the global regulation of agricultural markets to guarantee sufficiently stable and lucrative agricultural prices, and thus ensure the development of all agricultural activities throughout the world. Six years later, when agricultural prices have rarely been as volatile, when hunger affects close to one billion people––most of them farmers––this global regulation of agricultural markets still remains to be implemented. Yet, is most essential if we want the global agricultural output to increase by 70 percent by 2050, so that it can feed nine billion people.
momagri Editorial Board
Africa should reinvest in agriculture as a way to create jobs for youth and women said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark, during her three-day official visit to Benin.
“Africa needs a new agricultural revolution,” said Helen Clark at the inauguration of theNational Songhai Center, an incubator for agribusiness - and youth entrepreneurship, with Benin President Yayi Boni. “I hope that this kind of training can be multiplied many thousands of times over so agriculture in Africa can feed its people.”
Helen Clark is on an official visit to Benin to highlight that country’s peace and stability in a region where recent developments have reversed the course of democratic and development gains.
“We need women and youth to be engaged in and enthusiastic about using Africa’s fertile land to boost its agricultural production,” said Helen Clark. “By empowering young people, Benin is investing in its most valuable asset.”
Supported by UNDP, the Songhai Center is a hub for training, production, research, and development of sustainable agricultural practices in Benin as a means to create decent jobs for youth and women. The center advocates the use of a hybrid of traditional and modern agricultural practices combined with management courses and communal responsibility to propel its graduates into agriculture.
Currently only 17 percent of arable land in Benin is being cultivated.
The newly inaugurated hub forms part of six centers working to increase agricultural production, increase productivity, and create productive employment for up to 10,000 youth per year.
“Young people around the world ask for nothing more than to have opportunity, a chance to get ahead, to be able to express their opinions, and contribute to their families and their community.”
According to International Labour Organization’s figures, more than 87 percent of Beninese youth work in the informal sector, and the country is also struggling to curtail child labor.
While in Benin, Helen Clark met with President Yayi Boni, Prime Minister Pascal I. Koupaki, and other key ministers to discuss the implementation of Benin’s long term development plan to increase that country’s competitiveness by fostering business investment, strengthening the role of local communities and the institutional framework of the agricultural sector, and modernizing the port and other critical infrastructure […]
1 The complete article is available on the website of the UNDP Press Center at: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/