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Yves Boudot spent 27 years of his career in about ten African countries. He was appointed Director of AFD’s Sub-Saharan Africa Department a few weeks ago.

Is it right to say that Africa is the priority continent for AFD?

Africa is the main priority for France’s cooperation policy.* AFD is in charge of implementing this vision. This priority given to financing development in Sub-Saharan Africa aims to provide solutions to the major issues and challenges posed by the emergence of the continent. This priority is also the result of the very history of France’s official development assistance and of our Institution. It is in Sub-Saharan Africa that AFD’s operational, financial and emotional roots are implanted. This is what makes AFD stand out in the landscape of donors and also constitutes its main area of expertise and its core value. Sub-Saharan Africa concentrates nearly 40% of AFD’s total activity and 60% of the State budgetary effort.

How should we view the situation in Africa today?

We should try to avoid the tendency we have to generalize as soon as we talk about this continent. For far too long now, generalities about the situation in Africa and its future have made us vacillate unequivocally between a pessimistic or fatalistic vision and a blind optimism. Sub-Saharan Africa is diverse and complex with widely varying situations. However, one thing that is sure today is that Sub-Saharan Africa is at the forefront of the global issues and challenges both today and for the coming decades. This is perhaps how the situation actually stands in Africa today. The unprecedented population dynamics, the strong and resilient economic growth in recent years, the natural resources potential that we are constantly talking about, but which has so far been developed very little, and the continued progress towards peace and democracy have definitely made us change the way we look at the continent. South Africa is a striking example. Who could have foreseen, back in 1990 when Nelson Mandela came out of prison, that twenty years later this country would be the economic power that it is on the way to becoming?

What are the main challenges that Sub-Saharan African countries need to face?

There are major challenges. Africa will need to feed almost a billion more people by 2050. Its population growth rate is estimated at some 15 million more people a year. Its agriculture will need to feed cities that will continue to grow at a fast pace and also to provide rural areas with a livelihood. By 2050, two billion Africans will need access to water, energy, education or health, whereas today’s production and distribution capacities cannot meet demand. Finally, economic growth in Africa, which is well above the current growth of our economies, will first and foremost need to be synonymous with large-scale job creation for the continent’s youth and with tax resources for States. The emergence of a formal private sector is one of the major challenges for Sub-Saharan Africa.

What are AFD’s main strategic directions in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Once again, they depend on the economic and social situation of the countries we support. They consequently first depend on the demand and needs of the beneficiaries of our financing, but also on States’ capacity to borrow in order to finance their investments. AFD’s activity in Sub-Saharan Africa is today guided by three main areas defined by the French Government: financing major infrastructure, developing more productive agriculture and supporting more inclusive growth. The first therefore involves supporting the development of major infrastructure and providing communities in cities and rural areas with access to essential services. They concern access to energy, transport, water, irrigation, education and health. A recent World Bank study highlighted the lack of this infrastructure, the high cost of access to it and the substantial additional amounts required to remedy the current situation over the next ten years. Energy and transport are objectively speaking the two main priorities. These two sectors require heavy investments. They must be implemented by coordinating the efforts of donors, private partners and States. For example, there is considerable hydropower potential and projects, which are necessarily regional, are implemented over the long term. We must now focus our efforts on this sector. Since the end of the 1970s, rail transport has been abandoned for roads and yet on the main trade corridors and to transport raw materials from the mining industry it is the means of transport that best meets needs. The second priority area for the coming years is to develop subsistence farming and agri-food industries. The sector accounts for 13% of GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa and concerns almost 70% of the working population. It helps create value, stabilize communities in rural areas and combat desertification. Africa’s agriculture needs to be more productive in order to guarantee food security for cities and rural areas and create export surplus. These challenges are core to the way movements take place between Africa’s growing cities and rural areas. Finally, everyone is aware that for nearly ten years now, the continent’s economic growth rates have been well above those of our own economies. This steady growth is largely driven by the upward trend for commodity prices, notably mining and oil products. It is, moreover, often unequal from one country to another. It is essential to promote the development of more inclusive growth led by a formal private sector in high employment generating sectors. AFD is consequently pursuing its efforts to promote the development of a banking and financial system oriented towards the development of this private sector.

Do we have geographical priorities?

In terms of the distribution of the French State’s budgetary effort, the 14 priority countries for French cooperation** are a strong focus for AFD’s activity. However, AFD now works in all Sub-Saharan African countries where it adapts its action and tailors its tools to the needs expressed and to our ability to meet them. The real priority would be to come up with a different geographical approach to Sub-Saharan Africa. We must first look at things from a regional perspective, particularly for major infrastructure projects, while pursuing national actions in other sectors. The scale of the challenges that we have just mentioned and the critical size of the economic blocs are such that a regional approach is inevitably essential. This is true when it comes to financing major energy or transport infrastructure projects, but also for the development of coherent and integrated economic areas that create dynamism and emulation, in synergy with the regional Unions that are gradually emerging.

* This priority is set out in the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs’ Framework Document for Cooperation for 2011.

** The 14 priority countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

The first €4.5m agreement was signed by Clément Duhaime, Administrator of the International Organization of the Francophonie, and Dov Zerah, Chief Executive Officer of AFD, and will finance the School and National Languages project (ELAN).

The second €4m agreement was signed by Bernard Cerquiglini, Rector of the Association of Francophone Universities (AUF), and Dov Zerah, and will finance the Francophone Initiative of Distance Training of Teachers (IFADEM).

The agreements were co-signed by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE), represented by Delphine Borione, Director of Cultural and French Language Policy.

The signings took place in the presence of the ambassadors of the eight countries concerned: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, DR Congo, Mali, Niger and Senegal.

The occasion was also marked by the signing of partnership agreements between OIF, AUF, MAEE and AFD.

This underscores the commitment of French cooperation and Francophonie institutions to combine their efforts to support a quality basic education in Africa that integrates the continent’s linguistic diversity.

The School and National Languages project

The School and National Languages project (ELAN) will help the eight French-speaking Sub-Saharan African countries that have joined the initiative to organize bilingual education combining the use of an African language understood by children and the learning of the French language during the first years of primary school.

The project will support the planning of the reform, the production of appropriate teaching materials, capacity building for stakeholders and trainers and awareness-raising for school decision-makers and partners.
The Distance Training of Teachers project

The Distance Training of Teachers project (IFADEM) will help about ten volunteer African countries, as well as Madagascar, to upgrade teachers who have been recruited in large numbers over the last decade and often without vocational training.

The project will finance support for national continuous training for teachers in order to integrate distance training methods through the implementation of the IFADEM system. This will also be the case for training cycles, the development and sharing of innovative pedagogical resources, particularly in digital form, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the impacts on teacher training and pupil learning.

These financing agreements are contributing to the special efforts made by France to support Education for All and are part of a new generation of technical assistance operations.

These operations pool resources in order to offer French-speaking Sub-Saharan African countries long-term support from specialized operators able to support the implementation of solutions that meet the reform targets of African education systems.

The signing took place at the headquarters of the International Organization of Francophonie (OIF).

Les auteurs proposent pour chacun des quatre pays un diagnostic de l’état de l’organisation effective de la décentralisation et la confrontent à l’architecture institutionnelle choisie. L’analyse des écarts entre ce qui est formellement voulu et ce qui a été réalisé sur le terrain permet de suggérer des pistes de réformes. Une grille d'analyse des politiques décentralisées est proposée,qui devrait aider à cerner les enjeux, révéler les difficultés et in fine, assurer la cohérence des décisions de décentralisation. Cet ouvrage devrait ainsi permettre aux acteurs des négociations de la décentralisation de s’approprier cette grille de lecture et d’en faire usage dans le contexte de leur démarche décentralisatrice.

La version anglaise de cet ouvrage sera publiée dans le cadre de la collection Africa Development Forum series (L’Afrique en développement), créée conjointement par la Banque mondiale et l’Agence Française de Développement.

Décryptage avec ce dossier spécial « Sécurité alimentaire » au lendemain du "G20 agricole" qui a réuni pour la première fois, à Paris, les ministres de l'agriculture des pays du G20.

►  L'éradication de la faim n'est pas une utopie. Des solutions existent. Abolir la faim dans le monde « maintenant », tribune du Pr Ismaïl Serageldin et Dov Zerah

► 3 questions à Jean-Luc François, directeur de la division Développement agricole et rural

► Focus sur le Ghana, un pays pour qui l'agriculture est au coeur des priorités

 "Moderniser les process agricoles mais également notre façon de penser le monde"

3 questions à Jean-Luc François

Jean-Luc François est responsable de la division Développement agricole et rural à l'AFD

Qu’entend par sécurité alimentaire ?

La sécurité alimentaire signifie que tous mangent à leur faim. Mais il ne suffit pas de nourrir les gens pour qu’ils aient faim. Il faut augmenter leurs revenus.

Quels sont, d’après vous, les causes de la très grande vulnérabilité alimentaire dans laquelle vivent les pays du Sud aujourd’hui ?

Hormis des causes structurelles et locales, nous sortons d’une décennie où la doxa dans le monde des économistes du développement était : libéralisation et nouvelles technologies. Cependant – cause ou conséquence ? – la vulnérabilité aux phénomènes climatiques critiques, l’accroissement de la demande des pays émergents, au premier rang desquels la Chine, et le passage de leurs populations à des régimes carnés – beaucoup plus consommateurs de ressources naturelles – ont provoqué une réduction drastique des régions excédentaires et donc une flambée des prix. Les pays du Sud, de plus en plus dépendants de leurs importations de denrées alimentaires et où la population rurale est extrêmement pauvre, ont été particulièrement touchés par cette flambée des prix.

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes toujours dans cette grande vulnérabilité alimentaire.

Quelle est la stratégie prônée par la France et l’AFD ?

Pour répondre au défi de la faim, notre axe prioritaire est de moderniser l’agriculture des pays du Sud. Moderniser les process agricoles certes mais également notre façon de penser le monde et notre environnement. Il convient de conjuguer réponse globale et solutions locales.

La mise en place d’instances d’échanges, de régulation régionales, voire mondiale, en matière de politique agricole et de marchés des matières agricoles sont devenues une nécessité pour la majorité des acteurs du secteur.

En Afrique, par exemple, l’AFD travaille avec la Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) à la mise en place d’une gestion régionale des risques pour répondre aux désordres du marché.

Quels sont les axes d’intervention prioritaires en matière de développement rural et agricole ?

Nous intervenons en matière de structuration des filières, d’innovation, d’assurance et de crédit agricole ainsi que dans le domaine de la formation.

Des filières agricoles plus fortes sont également un moyen de lutter contre la vulnérabilité des populations. De la production à l’exportation en passant par l’accompagnement d’opérateurs intermédiaires, l’AFD accompagne certains de nos pays partenaires dans la structuration de ces filières.

Nous avons mis au point une palette d’outils financiers accessibles aux acteurs agricoles, en mixant prêts et dons, en développant des systèmes de garanties (fonds ARIZ par exemple).

Enfin, nous participons également à la recherche que ce soit sur les impacts de la libéralisation sur les agricultures du sud, sur la volatilité des prix et des moyens de la combattre, sur l’appropriation des terres, sur les filières vivrières, etc.

L’AFD est reconnu par ses partenaires comme un bailleur de fonds qui a une vision robuste de l’agriculture. Cependant, notre activité dans un pays, dans un secteur ne dépend pas que de nous. En effet, l’AFD répond à des demandes de ses partenaires. A nous de les convaincre.

Focus sur un pays, le Ghana, pour qui l'agriculture est au coeur des priorités

Interview de Bruno Leclerc, directeur de l'agence AFD d'Accra (durée 7 mn)

Abolir la faim dans le monde «maintenant»

Tribune du Professseur Ismail Serageldin et Dov Zerah, parue dans les Echos le 22 juin.

"L'éradication de la faim n'est pas une utopie. Des solutions existent. A la veille du G20 agricole, c'est plus que jamais une cause d'intérêt universel. L'agriculture africaine doit redevenir une priorité de l'aide internationale. "

Lire la suite de la tribune