This book describes how the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has been trying to improve markets for staple foods in Africa through its Market Access Programme. It describes 13 projects from eight countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) that the programme has supported. The book does not attempt to describe the cases in detail. Rather, it focuses on particular aspects in order to derive lessons from which the project managers, AGRA and other development organizations can learn.

This chapter starting presenting the current status of agricultural research systems in SSA at national and regional levels against a backdrop of key policy changes and progressive elaboration of agricultural knowledge frameworks registered in the last decade or so. The section argues for endogenous mechanisms to encourage sustainable funding of agricultural research in the region. Section 2 discusses key trends and some innovative approaches that are helping bridge the supply and demand mismatch in AAS.

This policy paper provides a macro-level picture of youth’s inability to access agriculture finance, and provides six major recommendations to policy makers: 1) promote financial literacy for youth 2) enhance the capability of financial institutions to assess agricultural sector opportunities; 3) African governments should produce and share reliable statistics on youth employment in agriculture and their financial inclusion; 4) policy makers should encourage special finance packages for young agripreneurs that do not require fixed collateral, e.g.