Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa ... - infoDev

Figure 1.2 Major SSA Cotton Producers (thousands of tons of lint, 2004–08average)Burkina FasoMaliBeninZimbabweTanzaniaCôte d’IvoireCameroonNigeriaChadZambiaTogoMozambiqueMalawiUgandaEthiopiaSenegalothers0 50 100 150 200 250 300annual lint production (thousand tons)Source: ICAC.Note: The list includes countries producing more than 20,000 tons of lint. Dark color denotescountries covered in this study.poverty reduction, into the differential effects of pricing policies, and into thenature and scope of the productivity challenges the sector faces.The term “reform” is widely used but seldom defined in development literature.This book understands reform to be consciously chosen change in thefundamental organization of a sector and related changes in the “rules of thegame” under which stakeholders operate. Under this definition, every countryin ESA reformed its cotton sector in the early to mid-1990s, either eliminatingsingle-channel parastatals (Zambia and Zimbabwe) or privatizing cooperativeginners (Uganda and Tanzania). 10 In the sample WCA countries, only Beninand, to a lesser degree, Burkina Faso have reformed their cotton sectors underthis definition. 11Yet a key theme that emerges from this research is that reform is not simplya movement from one stable set of rules of the game to another stable set. Thereforms of the 1990s in ESA have been followed by continuous and sometimesdramatic change in every country. Even countries in WCA that have notreformed under this definition have effected substantial incremental change inthe ways in which they carry out critical sector activities. An important contributionof this research is showing how the details of institutional design matter,providing a rich sense of the diversity of approaches that have emerged to dealwith common challenges, and providing insight into the factors that influencewhich approach might be chosen under different circumstances.The report is organized in five sections. The next chapter in section I presentskey elements of the current world market setting. Section II provides historicalbackground, outlines the typology of cotton sectors used to form8 DAVID TSCHIRLEY