| Agricultural productivity growth is widely seen as an essential instrument of poverty reduction, food security and broader economic growth. Paradoxically, however, the agricultural sector is often neglected by African governments in what is often termed ‘urban bias’. This paper explores what appears to be a very contemporary form of urban bias: that despite open acknowledgement of the importance of agriculture, public expenditure allocations to the agricultural sector remain very low in Africa. An innovation of the paper is to go beyond the broad cross-country picture about why this might be the case to instead examine more complex country stories through the use of expert surveys. Specifically, we interview senior policymakers in ministries of... |
