The quiet revolution in agri-food distribution (wholesale, logistics, retail) in sub-Saharan Africa

This second chapter in the monograph Private sector’s role in agricultural transformation in Africa, published by IFPRI in September 2019, argues that traders, truckers, and retailers represent the circulatory system of food value chains in Africa, constituting about 40% of the total gross value of the value chains in sub-Saharan Africa. This is the same as the share from farms in African food value chains. Trader and logistic firm performance—and enabling conditions—are extremely important to the food security of Africans.

There is a Quiet Revolution in the small and medium enterprise (SME) trader and logistics segments in sub-Saharan Africa. The SMEs are proliferating and making large investments, in the aggregate and individually, in vehicles and equipment. Third party logistics services in trucking and warehousing to abound. For this reason, governments and donors need not and should not “reinvent the wheel” and step in directly to provide warehouses, transport, or aggregation facilities. The SME private sector is largely already providing these services, but is constrained in many ways. The need is to relieve the constraints facing them and let the Quiet Revolution proceed further and faster.

Traders and logistics firms note that they are constrained by the condition of wholesale markets and roads, corruption in the governance of roads, electricity and fuel costs, and vehicle import ease and cost. These should be public policy and investment priorities.