African Water Development Report 2006 - United Nations Economic ...

African Water Development Report 2006per annum to 30 million metric tons in 25 years.Much of this can be explained by the fact thatabout one third of the people in the region livein drought-prone areas. In much of West Africa,average food supply (2430 kcal/day/person) isbelow what is regarded as the optimum level ofnutritional supply, namely 2700 kcal/day/person.Nigeria seemed to sustain an increasing rateof agricultural production in the 1990’s (table8.2). In east and southern Africa, the number offood insecure people has almost doubled from22 million in the early 1980s to 39 million inthe early 1990s. It has been estimated that a 3.3per cent increase in agricultural output per annumis needed to achieve food security objectivesfor the continent. Worse still, scenarios suggestthat if the areas under irrigation were to growby a factor of 3, to over 16 million hectares, thiswould only represent a 5 per cent contributionto the required three-fold food production increaseneeded by 2025. Finally, it is worth notingthat despite the high levels of food insecurity inthe region, most countries have substantial under-utilizedpotential for irrigation expansion (±39.5 million hectares, not taking into accountlarge-scale river diversion schemes). In fact, twothirds of African countries have developed lessthan 20 per cent of their potential (in all but fourcountries in the region, less than 5 per cent ofthe cultivated area is irrigated). The three countrieswith the most irrigation potential have eachdeveloped less than 10 per cent of their potentialirrigated area. The scope for expansion of irrigationis, therefore, considerable; however, it isapparent that there is an even greater scope forexpansion of rain-fed agriculture if agriculture isto make the necessary contribution to Africa’ssocio-economic development.The continent’s land and water resources areimportant for agriculture, which accounts for34 per cent of Africa’s GDP, 70 per cent of itslabour force and 40 per cent of its exports. In1998, Africa recorded a sustained growth rate ofits economy of 3.3 per cent as compared to 2.9per cent in 1997 and 4.0 per cent in 1996. Theagricultural sector accounted for 19.4 per centof total output in 1997, as compared to 22.3 percent in 1980, and recorded a growth of 1.7 percent and 3.5 per cent respectively in 1997 and1998. Examples of the role of agricultural productionwithin the general dynamics of nationalGDP are shown for Morocco in table 8.3 andin figure 8.4 for the Sudan with the evolutionTable 8.3: Dynamics of Agricultural Sector in the GDP of MoroccoYears 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002GDP 133,7 133,6 134,9 143,6 150,1Agricultural GDP 21,9 18,2 15,5 19,8 21,3A GDP/GDP (%) 16,3 13,6 11,5 13,8 14,2Source: AWDR National Report, 2005.Table 8.2: Performance of the Agricultural Sector in NigeriaTotal in Million US $ Average Annual Growth Rate % Share in Total GDP %1992/94 1995/97 1998/99 1992/94 1995/97 1998/99 1992/94 1995/97 1998/998,328 9,178 9,825 1.9 4.2 2.6 30.6 31.6 31.7Source: AWDR National Report, Comment:196