Although the private and public sectors can be considered polar opposites of each other, it has become clear in the last few years, especially in the case of Africa, that both sectors are not only essential but must cooperate in order to achieve long-lasting and result oriented objectives.

Public-private partnerships are imperative for leveraging the needed funds, sharing the risks of investments, and working together in partnership. Furthermore, developing private-public partnerships can strengthen democratic institutions of governance, open markets, and mobilize and use development resources more effectively.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Gavin Wall, Director of Rural Infrastructure & Agroindustries Division, "Only the private sector can make the investments required at a meaningful scale and in a sustainable way. This means that Africa is not different from other regions and that it can look to countries in Asia and Latin America, which have achieved growth in the output and value of their agricultural sectors. FAO can play an important role in supporting governments to create the enabling environment, including policy development and capacity building of both public and private sector actors in areas such as technology, institutional organization and management."

Without a strong public sector no African country can establish stability on all fronts. A robust public sector means institutions that work and policies that provide basic and essential services to communities. However, certain sectors, in addition to smart and realistic public policies, can only achieve long-term and sustainable results with incentives - most importantly, financial incentives.

This is where the private sector can and must be further integrated to ensure real growth. A sector such as agriculture needs government support to provide appropriate irrigation, create markets and provide subsidies. However, this sector also brings in much needed income and potentially thousands of jobs in a region where millions of youth are entering the job market. This sector must be viewed as needing to provide "private sector" incentives for entire communities.

The likes of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa and UniBRAIN[i] are approaching this issue proactively. "Africa is blessed with the world's youngest population, but if the youth are not fully employed they will become frustrated, angry and dangerous. This must be avoided by creating jobs and for that it is necessary to have job-creators, in other words, successful entrepreneurs and business men and women," explained Ralph von Kaufmann, Technical Coordinator at UniBRAIN. "The greatest constraint to smallholder farmers getting good farm-gate prices is the high cost of marketing, low value addition and their weak bargaining positions. 

UniBRAIN is addressing these issues by viewing each weak link in the value chain as a business opportunity. If there is value to be added, an African businessperson should be encouraged and supported to capture it. The tragedy of the co-existence of graduates who cannot find jobs and businesses that cannot fill vacancies must not be allowed to continue. "The Silicon Valley businesses (Google, e-Bay, Logitech, etc.) are products of Stanford University, but such associations between business and universities are all too rare in Africa."

The links between universities and businesses are still rare but can be improved if the concept of public and private sector partnerships is increased. "The private sector, thanks to its investments and know-how, can provoke the most important transformation in Africa's agriculture and in parallel can bring rural agriculture to achieve better outputs," said Moussa Seck, President of the Pan-African AgriBusiness and Agro-Industry Consortium (PanAAC).

Seck said across all countries, the private sector constitutes the driving force of economic growth. Senegal's agricultural sector as well as the rest of Africa is still looking for ways to be auto-sufficient. Commercial agriculture is still lagging and agricultural productivity needs to be increased, he believes.

According to the FAO, there is also a need to invest in the downstream segments of the food chains that ensure that value is added to agricultural products and that food reach consumers in the growing domestic and global markets. In fact, of the $940 billion that FAO estimates as investments needed in Sub-Saharan Africa to feed the world in 2050, about 66 percent will be required for capital outlays in agro-industries and agribusiness activities such as cold chains, storage, market facilities and first stage processing.

These facts are clear indicators that public-sector-driven policies are essential for countries and private sector incentives are just as necessary.

(The writer is Communications Manager of EMRC – an internationally renowned organization providing a platform for Africa's private and public sector to come together and discuss partnership opportunities - www.emrc.be)

[i]The Universities, Business and Research in Agricultural Innovation (UniBRAIN) is an initiative of the Forum of Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the government of  Denmark whose objective is to enable universities, business and agricultural research institutions to commercialize agricultural technologies and produce graduates with entrepreneurial and business skills.