ABSTRACT
Africa is still mainly a rural continent where most people are farmers, herders or fishermen. Though towns and industries are growing rapidly, by far the greatest proportion of Africa’s people live in rural villages. For the foreseeable future, agricultural and rural development must be the main priorities if living standards are to rise and national productivity is to increase. Africa’s political leaders seem to be aware of this and frequently make reference in their speeches and writings to the importance of rural development, but relatively little progress has actually been made in recent years. In fact during the 1980s Africa became associated with drought, desertification, famine and poverty.
