Strengthening rural livelihoods in the face of rapid urbanisation in Africa Employment opportunities in West African food systems Thomas Allen Brussels, Belgium, 20 March 2017

Urbanisation and cities

Urbanisation and cities

Urbanisation and cities

1 Changing demand 2 Food: The largest private sector 3 The regional opportunities 4 Key messages

Diversifying diets Urban  Rural 

Demand for convenience Urban 41% Rural 36%

1 Changing demand 2 Food: The largest private sector 3 The regional opportunities 4 Key messages

The region’s largest private sector Size of the food economy The region’s largest private sector c 36% of regional GDP 178 USD billion (2010) 32 USD billion (2010) GDP Ghana

Food imports = 7%… The domestic food economy is 16x bigger than the agricultural export sector 178 USD billion (2010) 11 USD billion (2010) Agricultural exports

1 Changing demand 2 Food: The largest private sector 3 The regional opportunities 4 Key messages

178 USD billion Increasingly non agricultural Economic diversification (2010)

Employment structure in the food economy Nigeria in 2016 13 m FTE jobs 19 m FTE jobs Source: Tchirley et al. (2016) and author’s calculations

No youth-specific activities Nigeria in 2016 % Share of age group by segment Source: Tchirley et al. (2016)

Different regional and local contexts Concentration of urban demand

Different regional and local contexts Source: Karg et al. (2016) Ouagadougou Concentration of urban demand

1 Changing demand 2 Food: The largest private sector 3 The regional opportunities 4 Key messages

Emerging opportunities in the West African food economy Key messages Emerging opportunities in the West African food economy Post-harvest segments of the food value chains will experience the fastest growth Need to better understand the local contexts and spatial dimensions of job creation

Réseaux marchands Thank you for your attention