Since the spring of 1958 the World Bank has taken a serious interest in lending money for agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara. By mid-1968 the Bank and the International Development Association had extended agricultural loans and credits totalling over $100 million to Sudan, Cameroun, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, about 6 % of the total of $1.7 billion they lent for all purposes from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. However of all the difficult problems presented to the W.B., none has been more perplexing than the problem of African agriculture, because – according to J.C, de Wilde, a senior economist in the W. B. – governments and international organizations have taken a much too limited approach to the African agriculture and have not appraised in advance all the interrelated ecological, social and economic factors influencing the responses particular projects or measures are likely to elicit. The development of the various activities and the possibilities of the W.B. are described in the article.
