Inclusive growth and sustainable job creation: Comparative advantage of the economy of agroecology
Session moderators: Markus Arbenz, FiBL
Session keynote speakers: Jean Michel Sourisseau, CIRAD
Session panelists: Alice Turinawe, CAES, Makerere University (Uganda); Evelyne Compaore, INERA (Burkina Faso); Paul Wagstaff, Self Help Africa (Ireland)
In this session, we will discuss the potential for agroecology and its scaling up to meet the challenges of sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to change the role of agriculture in development strategies. We start from the hypothesis, which can be discussed, that the subcontinent can't follow the development trajectory adopted by the countries today called "developed". The slow and incomplete demographic transition, the weakness of urban infrastructure (especially in medium-sized cities), the trend towards deindustrialization in recent decades and the difficult integration of most African economies into globalization, generate unique and unprecedented challenges, which conventional agricultural modernization will not be able to meet. We want to discuss the prospects of agroecology in terms of:
· creation of decent, well-paid jobs and self-empoyment (which the manufacturing sector could not create),
· growth and structural change drivers, particularly through its ability to generate more redistributive short supply chains and to boost localized food systems,
· positive long-term economic and societal outcomes, thanks to more balanced management of natural resources, as well as a better valorization of cultural assets in territories,
· etc.
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