Africa’s Development Corridors as Pathways to Agricultural Development, Regional Economic Integration and Food Security in Africa

Becoming an Agricultural Growth Corridor

“…Most agricultural-development plans focus on supply side interventions, such as improved seed and fertilizers, and many pay too little attention to the demand side-the place where the increased production will ultimately go Tsikata 2017, Paul andSteinbrecher 2013). Once the subsistence requirements of the producers' families and local communities have been met, there are three main sources of demand: export markets (international and regional), domestic urban markets, and food processing (Kuhlmann, Sechler, andGuinan 2011, Lambert andMacNeil 2015).…”

“…In Mozambique, the emergence of an AGC model follows two decades of experimentation in various corridor forms across the South African Development Community (SADC) region (Kuhlmann, Sechler, andGuinan 2011, Tate 2011). The Maputo Development Corridor (MDC), Mozambique's first 'development' corridor, and the precursor to all corridors in the region, has strongly influenced the corridors programme and spatial planning across Southern Africa (Sequeira, Harmann, and Kunaka 2014).…”

“…infrastructure investment and agribusiness interventions across connected geographical territories, have proliferated across the African continent(Kuhlmann et al 2011, Nogales 2014, Paul and Steinbrecher 2013. The agro-corridor approach is said to offer the potential for policy-makers and external actors to provide targeted support to low-income farmers to bring them to levels to benefit from the above potential opportunities offered by corridors, removing major barriers to impact, adoption and scaling of agricultural research technologies and products Steinbrecher 2013, Serraj et al 2015).…”

“…The agro-corridor approach is said to offer the potential for policy-makers and external actors to provide targeted support to low-income farmers to bring them to levels to benefit from the above potential opportunities offered by corridors, removing major barriers to impact, adoption and scaling of agricultural research technologies and products Steinbrecher 2013, Serraj et al 2015). Corridors may offer better connected and supplied pilot areas to trigger transformational change of current agricultural production systems(Kuhlmann, Sechler, and Guinan 2011, Weng et al 2013). The corridors agenda encourages more holistic approaches to policy issues by moving away from sectoral approaches(CGIAR 2016, Nogales 2014.…”

How to understand a development corridor? The case of Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia‐Transport corridor in Kenya

“…Megaprojects that consist of transport networks – road, railway, port, and pipeline infrastructures – aim to connect sites of production (often landlocked areas), economic hubs (often urban and coastal processing zones), and global markets (Enns, ; Laurance et al, ). In the mainstream development policy discourse, these corridors have been framed as central in “generat[ing] economies of scale sufficient to attract the sort of private sector interest needed to fuel growth, increase exports and, ultimately, spur poverty alleviation” (Kuhlmann et al, , p. 5). However, recent geographical research (Enns, , ; Kirshner & Power, ; Lesutis, , ; Mosley & Watson, ) focusing on how megaprojects interact with landscapes of host countries has highlighted socio‐political tensions that emerge as a result of infrastructural developments associated with these corridors.…”