This study looks at the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) and Maputo Development corridors and their roles in addressing constraints to market integration for agricultural producers and potential lessons for the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) to maximise its impact on smallholders, particularly at the regional level.
Key Findings
- Corridors can do much for farmers but the existing literature and our interviews tend to show they risk being ‘corridors of power’ rather than ‘corridors of plenty’ so far.
- A key finding is that cross-border trade is increasingly improving, particularly for larger operators. This relates in part to corridor-related initiatives to improve both “hard” aspects such as infrastructures and “soft” aspects such as border and port management.
- Current constraints to regional and national value chain integration reportedly relate more to ‘behind the border’ issues. A more in-depth, narrowly focused political economy analysis would help in specifying what each relevant actor could do for the successful integration of corridors approaches and proposed CAADP-related investment.
- Overall, there is a need for deeper understanding and more dialogue to build trust between different parts of the private sector, policy makers and other key stakeholders at the national, regional and international level.
