SPECIAL REPORT
and especially the youth in the case of COMESA, the road should include the following:
• Access to markets and institutional strengthening for agriculture value chains;
• Banks and financial institutions must play a bigger role in extending credit;
• Creating an enabling environment to focus on policies, knowledge transfer, coordination of information and statistics;
• Developing better water management systems, labour saving technologies and enhance land productivity;
• Discussing mechanisms and develop frameworks to address low volumes, poor delivery, and sub-standard products and services;
• Including capacity development issues, based on an integrated and comprehensive approach to national and regional programmes;
• Supporting implementation of policies in higher education, science and technology adapted to economic priorities and job-creation and increase the volume of investments in support of agriculture and related research centres.
Gender inequities in access to credit, inputs, labour, markets, public services and technologies is widespread in rural Africa. There is indeed significant prior evidence of productivity differences by gender( Udry, 1996; Doss and Morris, 2000). Likewise, greater distances from paved roads and trading centres may proxy for prohibitively high transaction costs, which prior studies reflect as having a correlation to agricultural productivity( Stifel and Minten, 2008). Sub-optimal investment in infrastructure can lead to incomplete factor markets, for example, through stock-outs of seeds and fertilisers( because of prohibitively high transaction costs) or thin labour markets. Further, variation in the agroecological zone, which serves as a proxy for agricultural potential, explains variation in the degree of market failure.
Regional harmonisation of food processing policies is both a technical and political process. It requires strong political will and commitment at various levels within the governments and institutions of Member States. The progress made and political-buy in realised so far could be attributed to the fact that it is been a recurrent agenda item in various COMESA policy meetings. National sovereignty is a fundamental and sensitive issue. The convergence and divergence between national and regional frameworks need more clarity. Handling pertinent concerns carefully to dispel fears that the regional process may infringe on, or override national interests and decision-making powers is crucial. A policy on its own is insufficient to deliver desired changes to a society without proper implementation.
Awareness and outreach efforts need enhancement in order for countries to appropriate the benefits of a regional approach in food processing decision-making. This necessitates the need for a focused and demand-driven communication strategy and implementation plan to ensure delivery of credible evidence to target audiences in the formats best suited for them. Thus, with limited global resources, in the face of environmental changes, meeting future food security challenges will first require a shift in thinking from just‘ producing food’, to food systems where the food processing industry has, no doubt, a vital role to play. It is the right time for COMESA to carry out its much expected roles and responsibilities. •
References
Doss, C. R., and Morris, M.,( 2000). How does gender affect the adoption of agricultural innovations? Agric. Econ. 25( 1), 27 – 39.
Stifel, D., and Minten, B.,( 2008). Isolation and agricultural productivity. Agric. Econ. 39( 1), 1 – 15.
Udry, C.,( 1996). Gender, agricultural production, and the theory of the household. J. Political Econ. 104( 5), 1010 – 1046.
Halde, P., Nishtala, S., Annapure, U., Appaiah, K. A., & Kulkarni, D. N.( 2013). Skill Development in the Indian Food Processing Sector. In B. Narasimharao, S. Kanchugarakoppal, & T. Fulzele( Eds.), Evolving Corporate Education Strategies for Developing Countries: The Role of Universities( pp. 186- 199). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
* The author is a research-focused professor in Namibia University of Science and Technology. She can be contacted at neetajb @ rediffmail. com
28 • COMESA • 2018