Africa's changing agricultural development strategies: past and present paradigms as a guide to the future

In this paper, Christopher L. Delgado, of IFPRI's senior research staff, takes a critical look at the changing paradigms of agricultural development that have influenced agricultural policy in Africa since the colonial era. The review shows how current approaches to meeting Africa's agricultural challenges to the year 2020 developed. It concludes that Africans have had relatively little input into the intellectual bases of strategies affecting their rural areas, a situation that must be changed if future strategies are to be effective in dealing with Africa's problems of development.