Consistency with Domestic Policies and Implications for Sustainable and Inclusive Agricultural Development

Development of the agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa is driven by, among other factors, policy frameworks in place. Trade policy, in particular, can play a role in achieving the overarching objectives of an ecologically sustainable, socially inclusive, and competitive agricultural sector. This paper reviews the trade policies of Benin, Ethiopia and Zambia, assessing their effects on agricultural-sector development. The consistency between trade policies and other policy fields, especially domestic agricultural policies, is analysed in order to determine the extent to which policies from different fields complement each other to achieve overarching objectives. The paper also reviews the regional and international commitments of the three selected countries to assess whether these commitments restrict domestic space for policies aimed at sustainable and socially inclusive agricultural development. The social inclusion of agricultural development is found to be substantially higher in Ethiopia compared to the two other countries, due to its strong and pro-poor public agricultural budget and relatively equal distribution of land use rights in the highlands. Meanwhile, international policy commitments are found to only marginally restrict domestic policy space for all three countries