Agriculture provides the backbone of the economy in many African countries. Moreover, the majority of the rural poor depend on agriculture either directly or indirectly for their livelihoods.1 Developing agriculture specifi cally and the rural sector more broadly are key components of Africas pathway out of poverty. Yet in the last decades of the 20th century, agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) suff ered from a tragedy of political inattention and disinvestment.

Agriculture is crucial for development in Africa, as the majority of the population lives in rural areas and at least 70 percent of the workforce is engaged in agriculture. In many African countries, growth in agriculture is the most effective strategy for reducing poverty and promoting overall economic growth (Diao et al. 2007). The period covered in this report was in many ways a positive year for African agriculture.

The member countries of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) had agreed to launch a customs union by December 2008 under which a common external tariff (CET) would have been imposed on all goods and services imported from outside COMESA. Even though the creation of the COMESA customs union was not achieved, it could have been a decisive step towards bolstering economic growth and alleviating poverty in the region. Not withstanding the failure to create a COMESA customs union, the welfare impacts of customs union are ambiguous.

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) provides an agriculture-led integrated framework of development priorities aimed at reducing poverty and increasing food security by achieving an average of 6 percent agricultural growth rate every year.