Productivity growth across AGRA’s 13 focus countries has remained below the ambitions set when the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa was established in 2006. Updating an earlier 2020 assessment with national-level data through 2024, Timothy A. Wise examines progress against goals related to agricultural productivity, smallholder incomes and food security. The analysis considers AGRA within the broader Green Revolution strategy supported by donors, African governments and the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP), rather than attributing observed outcomes to AGRA alone.

The paper finds that productivity growth has slowed and that increased production of promoted crops, including maize, has relied substantially on expanding cultivated land rather than achieving the intended “sustainable intensification” on existing farmland. The author’s Staple Yield Index indicates slower productivity growth since AGRA was founded than during the preceding period, while some traditional staples have lost ground as land has shifted towards priority crops. The assessment also reports that the number of undernourished people across the 13 countries increased by 58 percent between AGRA’s launch and 2024.

The paper discusses AGRA’s subsequent shift towards food-systems and policy reform under its 2022–2027 strategy and considers alternative agricultural policy approaches. Comparative evidence from Senegal, which is not an AGRA focus country, is used to examine how more diversified policies may contribute to different food-security outcomes.