Chapter 2. A historical comparative analysis of commodity development models in West Africa 57
Figure 8. Evolution of cocoa yields (Hg/Ha) for some major producing countries (1961-2005)
Source: FAOSTAT (2012)
Figure 9. Evolution of coffee yields (Hg/Ha) for some major producing countries (1961-2005)
Source: FAOSTAT (2012)
The fact that public officials predominate in these sectors has weakened other actors who could
potentially be involved along these value chains, impeding them from fully participating; this includes
producers’ organizations and associations and other private actors, such as traders at all levels,
specialized companies and product processing units, which are often dependent on the issue of licenses
by public authorities and confined to a minor role in the national market. The weakening of these actors
has somehow deprived the system from finding alternatives to cope with its difficulties and has mainly
favoured the sector losing competitiveness and productivity.
Given the difficulties faced in these value chains and the reversal of the dominant economic paradigm,
donors and international development organizations have begun to promote deregulation and the
state’s gradual withdrawal by implementing Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). These sought
to revive economies in developing and least-developed countries by restructuring the different sectors
through liberalization. In parallel, intergovernmental groups (IGG) were focused on strengthening
markets that became the cornerstone of the agricultural sector’s development in the new dominant
paradigm. Liberalization was quickly placed at the centre of aid conditionality and was carried out in
West Africa through a long process. Table 6 below provides an overview of the progress over time of
the liberalization phase and the gradual end of the value chain supervision.
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
Côte d'Ivoire Ghana Brazil0
10000
20000
30000
Côte d'Ivoire Colombia Viet Nam