The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) has embarked on a five-year programme to identify, prioritise and reform specific agricultural policies and regulations that were currently hampering private investment in small- and medium-sized agribusinesses serving smallholder farmers.

The Micro Reforms for African Agribusiness (Mira) initiative was aimed at creating an enabling environment through the motivation of at least 25 significant policy or regulatory reforms in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The project was expected to assist leaders and analysts to make “better-informed, economically robust assessments” and decisions on the reform of frameworks to facilitate increased private investment in smallholder value chains, explained Agra director of policy and advocacy Dr Steven Were Omamo.

“The Mira project will provide African governments with access to high-quality local and international technical assistance for identifying, prioritising and reforming specific agricultural regulations,” he added.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded project was expected to increase the number of smallholder farmers accessing improved technologies supplied by agribusinesses operating in local staple food value chains.

“It will also help them access stable, predictable income-generating market opportunities, which would lead to increased smallholder productivity and incomes, and reduced poverty for smallholder farm-dependent families,” Agra president Jane Karuku explained.

The not-for-profit group was calling for consultants to undertake a review of national agricultural policies and regulations that were limiting the flow of private sector investment into local agribusiness in the five selected countries.

Agra aimed to present the findings of the study to national governments as evidence of current policies and regulations that are constraining each country’s efforts to attract increased investment in their agriculture sectors.

The results would also be outlined at the African Union Commission’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme meetings in Addis Ababa, in March, as well as other yet-to-be-identified high-profile gatherings during 2014.