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The world’s agriculture produces $1.3 trillion a year in food
and fiber. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing account for one of every
two jobs worldwide and seven of 10 jobs in sub-Saharan Africa,
East Asia, and the Pacific. Maintaining the natural resource base
that sustains these jobs is critical in the coming decades.
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Foreign Aid in the National Interest, 2003
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Executive summary
In many developing countries, the agricultural
sector’s performance determines overall economic
growth, trade expansion, and increased
income-earning opportunities. Increasingly, this performance
is shaped by global, regional, and national
trade standards, changing consumer preferences,
and international advancements in science and technology.
To be successful, agricultural producers in
these developing countries require training and
infrastructure support, good governance and sound
policies, and a solid and progressive institutional
base that supports market participation.
Conceptual Framework
Good governance is an essential element of the
enabling environment for science-based, marketled,
sustainable agriculture. An emphasis on good
governance in agricultural sector programming
underscores the need for mutual responsibility, one
of the key principles evoked at the U.N.
Conference on Financing for Development in
Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002. In accordance
with the Monterrey consensus on aid effectiveness
principles, ideal partners for USAID-supported
agricultural development efforts will be countries
committed to the following:
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implementing policies that encourage greater
agricultural productivity and sound natural
resource management
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investing in infrastructure that enables markets
to work efficiently
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building research institutions that ensure a flow
of new and adapted technologies to producers
and postharvest enterprises
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supporting the expansion of effective training,
education, and communication systems that
provide producers and those in agribusiness -
women and men - with information they need
to be effective market participants
Some transformational development countries are
only beginning to put in place these conditions for
successful agricultural-sector transformations.
Agricultural development programs in these countries
will aim to help them become better partners
by providing technical assistance and limited
amounts of financial support.
In countries considered fragile states, the objectives
of U.S. assistance are stabilization, recovery, and
reform. Determinations of agricultural development
programs in fragile states will be based on
their contribution to these objectives. Such programs
will focus on restoration or recovery to
previous levels of production and productivity,
support of near-term reform measures, and other
immediate steps to promote stability and increase
productivity.
For strategic states, USAID will support programs
consistent with foreign policy objectives and concerns.
In many strategic states, resources will be
programmed to either promote transformational
development or contribute to overcoming fragility.
In these cases, the approaches to and criteria for
agricultural development programs will be consistent
with the U.S. foreign policy goals and concerns
that underlie the overall assistance program.
Ensuring food security in emergencies is an important
aspect of the provision of humanitarian assistance.
In cases of chronic emergencies, humanitarian
assistance will be structured to address systemic
failures. This often entails the use of humanitarian
resources to improve agricultural production and
productivity. A variety of interventions—such as
policy reform, food for work, cash distributions to
vulnerable people, stabilization of food stocks, and
market-based seed assistance for vulnerable farmers—
may be the focus of efforts to diminish the
number and depth of emergencies.
Certain global or transnational issues, such as
negotiations on the reduction of agricultural subsidies
in the World Trade Organization or global climate change, are linked to agricultural development.
Strategic themes of the Agriculture Strategy
will guide selective support for key global or
transnational issues.
Strengthening the capacity of countries and producers
to increase their agricultural productivity
under the Agriculture Strategy will require the
commitment of many partners. In addition to
USAID’s renewed commitment to agricultural
development, U.S. business and cooperative sectors,
international science and technology organizations,
other U.S. Government agencies, U.S. colleges and
universities, and NGOs must also commit fully to
agricultural development when partnering with
USAID.
Four Strategic Themes
Agricultural development is thus a strategic priority
for USAID. The Agency’s agricultural development
efforts will focus on increasing agricultural productivity
and smallholder participation in markets
through four strategic themes.
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To expand trade opportunities and improve the
trade capacity of producers and rural industries,
USAID will support the development of sound
policy environments; promote building institutions
and good governance; expand rural finance;
strengthen producers’ groups and other rural organizations;
enhance access to production, storage, and
processing technologies; and focus on higher-value
nutritious foods benefiting producers and consumers.
In particular, implementation of the
Agriculture Strategy will be coordinated with the
USAID Trade Capacity Building Strategy and focus
on helping countries to meet sanitary and phytosanitary
regulatory standards and attain higher
levels of agriculture trade disciplines required for
accession to the World Trade Organization.
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To improve the social, economic, and environmental
sustainability of agriculture, USAID will work to
restore the health of land, water, and forestry
resources; develop sustainable and renewable energy
sources; develop environmental assessment methodologies
that enable communities and implementing partners to assess environmental risks and damage
due to natural and conflict-related disasters; and
strengthen local capacity for integrated management
of agricultural and natural landscapes. The
Agency will also improve analytical and economic
frameworks linking agriculture and natural resource
investments, find organisms endangered in
nature and help protect them, and support the
development of agriculture and natural resource
policies that promote good governance and
improve productivity.
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To mobilize science and technology and foster
capacity for innovation, USAID will assist countries
and regions to formulate science policies, strategies,
and governance systems; support technology development
and application; expand public and private
sector partnerships and collaborative networks of
specialists; and foster innovation within and among
developing countries so that they can generate, utilize,
and direct new technologies in locally appropriate
directions. USAID and its partners will support
women’s capacity to participate in national
innovation systems and ensure investments in science
and technologies are appropriate to specific
national and regional conditions and systems.
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To strengthen agricultural training and education,
outreach, and adaptive research, USAID will support
education and training tailored to reach women
and girls; develop and extend innovative rural
information and communication technology systems;
and improve problem-based, site-specific
learning approaches. USAID recognizes that the
ability to access and manage information is fast
becoming a fundamental requirement for rural producers
to participate effectively in an increasingly
global food, feed, and fiber system, and will work
to ensure that the smallholder agriculture sector
receives training and support services necessary to
fully participate.
Implementation
This Agency strategy serves as a benchmark for
review and approval of new strategic plans and for
triennial strategy reviews of operating unit programs.
The strategy will also be used in reviewing and analyzing bureau program budget submissions
and constructing the Agency annual budget submission.
Operating units will monitor progress in
overall agricultural development as well as specific
programmatic results. While the weight given to a
strategic theme will be situation-specific, a demanddriven,
competitive economic framework for agriculture
should be the starting point in developing
countries capable of transformational development.
In fragile and strategic states, other criteria will
be added.
All USAID agricultural programming should conform
with this strategy, though the emphasis and
articulation of specific objectives will respond to
bureau and operating unit strategic plans, bureau
mandates, and country circumstances. In some
instances, national interest or other U.S. foreign
policy objectives may cause a program to fall
outside the strategic framework, but these few
exceptions will be clearly linked to achieving the
foreign policy objective in a specific country or
circumstance.
To implement the strategy, the Agency will
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link the Agriculture Strategy to the joint State-
USAID Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2004–2009
and identify indicators for performance goals
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ensure that operating unit strategic plans and
priorities reflect analyses and recommendations
of ongoing external review bodies
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strengthen donor coordination in agricultural
planning and activity implementation
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develop options to address the requirements of
agricultural development under a variety of
programmatic circumstances, including fragile,
famine-prone, and food-insecure states
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develop a new approach to agricultural
education and training in transformational
development countries
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develop guidelines and tools for conducting
agricultural sector assessments and design
strategies and programs consistent with the new
USAID business model
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strengthen professional capabilities to design
and implement effective agricultural programs
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develop state-of-the-art courses on strategic
agriculture issues
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provide adequate resources to agriculture from
all budget sources
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