Strengthening rural livelihoods in the face of rapid urbanisation in Africa

Employment opportunities in West African food systems

Thomas Allen

Brussels, Belgium, 20 March 2017

Urbanisation and cities

Urbanisation and cities

Urbanisation and cities

3 The regional opportunities

4 Key messages

2 Food: The largest private sector

1 Changing demand

27%

16%

2%

37%

17%

Fruits & Vegetables Meat & Fish Dairy Cereals Others

Diversifying diets

31%

22%4%

26%

17%

Urban  Rural 

Beverages4%

Cereals27%

Unprocessed foods30%

Processed foods39%

Demand for convenience

Urban

36%

Rural

41%

3 The regional opportunities

4 Key messages

1 Changing demand2 Food: The largest private sector

Size of the food economy

c178

USD billion(2010)

36% ofregional GDP

32 USD billion

(2010)

GDP Ghana

The region’s largest private sector

Food imports = 7%…

Domestic production93%

Imports7%

178 USD billion

(2010)

The domestic food economy is 16x bigger than the agricultural export sector

11 USD billion

(2010)

Agricultural exports

4 Key messages

1 Changing demand2 Food: The largest private sector

3 The regional opportunities

Economic diversification

Agriculture60%

Non agricul-tural40%

178 USD billion

(2010)

Increasingly non

agricultural

Employment structure in the food economy

Farming60%

Food processing8%

Transport, marketing and retail

30%

Food catering2%

13 m FTE jobs 19 m

FTE jobs

Source: Tchirley et al. (2016) and author’s calculations

Nigeria in 2016

Farming Farm labor Food processing Food marketing Food catering0

22.5

45

67.5

90

112.5

15-24 25-40 Women

Source: Tchirley et al. (2016)

%Nigeria in 2016

Shar

e of

age

gro

up b

y se

gmen

t

No youth-specific activities

Different regional and local contexts

Concentration of urban demand

Different regional and local contexts

Sour

ce: K

arg

et a

l. (2

016)

Concentration of urban demand

Ouagadougou

1 Changing demand2 Food: The largest private sector

3 The regional opportunities

4 Key messages

• Emerging opportunities in the West African food economy

• Post-harvest segments of the food value chains will experience the fastest growth

• Need to better understand the local contexts and spatial dimensions of job creation

Key messages

Thank you for your attention