Briefing Paper

Employment Creation in Non-Agricultural Sectors

The existence of employment-creating non-agricultural sectors is one of the five conditions common to cases of successful agricultural transformation . During the later stages of a successful agricultural transformation, two stylized facts are: (1) the decline of agriculture’s contribution to total employment in both relative and absolute terms; while (2) its contribution to GDP is in relative but not absolute decline. This policy brief focuses on what three remarkable countries have done to transform their agriculture sector, including addressing the need for non-farm employment creation. Although Rwanda, Vietnam, and Mauritius are at different stages of their agricultural transformation, their approaches have much in common. The cases illustrate how.