Agricultural Performance in Kenya since 1970: Has the World Bank Got It Right?

Critical analysis of the prevailing World Bank view on Kenya’s economic policy. According to this view, the country’s slowdown in agricultural performance is due to failures on the part of the government. The author argues that although Kenya’s agriculture suffers from many of the deficiencies of performance identified by the Berg Report (World Bank, 1981), it is difficult to find the source of those deficiencies in the characteristic policy defects identified by this Report. The major failures of agricultural policy in Kenya have been at the distributional rather than at the allocative level, and at this level donors and recipients share the blame. Bibliogr., notes, ref.