Walking the talk: Why and how African governments should transform their agriculture spending.

In 2003, the Maputo Declaration of the African Union stated that, within five years, 10 per cent of the budgets of member states would be dedicated to agriculture. Ten years on, despite spending increases by some countries, African governments still allocate an average of only 5 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture. Only seven out of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have consistently reached the 10 per cent target. This failing is holding back food production and food security in Africa, where 223 million people (a quarter of the population) live in hunger.