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on Africa |
| By: | Torero, Maximo |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Labor and Human Capital, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iatr13:152339&r=afr |
| By: | Johnson, Michael E.; Birner, Regina |
| Abstract: | This study examines the role of research in agricultural policy making in Malawi at a time when the Africa Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development have been seeking to promote greater evidenced-based decision making in agriculture. Drawing on both theory and actual past experiences documented in the literature, results are intended to improve our understanding of the extent to which research has played any role in influencing policy change in Malawi. This is done in the context of the evolution of the country’s fertilizer subsidy policies. |
| Keywords: | Policy process, Agricultural policy, Policy research, fertilizer, fertilizer policy, fertilizer subsidies, fertilizer subsidy, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1266&r=afr |
| By: | Mapila, Mariam A. T. J. |
| Abstract: | This study has been conducted in order to generate evidence of the visibility of exit from farm input subsidies in an African context. The study simulates the impact of alternative exit strategies from Malawi’s farm input subsidy program on maize markets. The simulation is conducted using a multiequation partial equilibrium model of the national maize market, which is sequentially linked via a price-linkage equation to local rural maize markets. The model accounts for market imperfections prevailing in the country that arise from government price interventions. Findings show that some alternative exit strategies have negative and sustained impacts on maize yields, production, and acreage allocated to maize over the simulation period. Market prices rise steadily as a result of the implementation of different exit strategies. Despite higher maize prices, domestic maize consumption remains fairly stable, with a slow but increasing trend over the simulation period. |
| Keywords: | fertilizer subsidies, farm input allocation, subsidy reform, partial equilibrium model, Agricultural policies, maize, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1278&r=afr |
| By: | Ragasa, Catherine; Sun, Yan; Bryan, Elizabeth; Abate, Caroline; Atlaw, Alumu; Keita, Mahamadou Namori |
| Abstract: | This report provides some reflections and insights on the level of awareness, practices, and organizational and institutional issues being faced by countries as they adapt to climate change, based on interviews with 87 practitioners working in government agencies, local organizations, international organizations, and think thanks reporting involvement in climate change adaptation. Data were collected in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mali using both an e-survey platform and face-to-face interviews. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, analysis, Gender, Women, Risk, Resilience, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1279&r=afr |
| By: | Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Jimah, Kipo; Kolavalli, Shashidhara; Diao, Xinshen; Funk, Rebecca Lee |
| Abstract: | Agriculture in African South of the Sahara (SSA) can be transformed if the right public support is provided at the initial stage, and it can sustain itself once the enabling environment is put in place. Successes are also specific to the location of projects. In Ghana, interesting insights are obtained from the successful Kpong Irrigation Project (KIP), contrasted with other major irrigation projects in the country. Through an exploratory review, we describe how a productive system evolved in KIP and how public support for critical aspects (accumulation of crop husbandry knowledge, selection and supply of profitable varieties, and mechanization of land preparation) might have created a productive environment that the private sector could enter and fill in the market for credit, processing, mechanization of harvesting, and other institutional voids that typically have constrained agricultural transformation in the rest of SSA. |
| Keywords: | agricultural transformation, agricultural profitability, Cultivation, Irrigation, Irrigation schemes, rice, Agricultural policies, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1272&r=afr |
| By: | Franklin Allen; Elena Carletti; Robert Cull; Jun “Qj” Qian; Lemma Senbet; Patricio Valenzuela |
| Abstract: | Using household surveys and bank penetration data at the district-level in 2006 and 2009, this paper examines the impact of Equity Bank—a leading private commercial bank focusing on microfinance—on the access to banking in Kenya. Unlike other commercial banks in Kenya, Equity Bank pursues distinct branching strategies that target underserved areas and less privileged households. Equity Bank presence has a positive and significant impact on households' use of bank accounts and bank credit, especially for Kenyans with low income, no salaried job and less education, and those that do not own their own home. The findings are robust to using the district-level proportion of people speaking a minority language as an instrument for Equity Bank presence. It appears that Equity Bank's business model—providing financial services to population segments typically ignored by traditional commercial banks and generating sustainable profits in the process—can be a solution to the financial access problem that has hindered the development of inclusive financial sectors in many African countries. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:298&r=afr |
| By: | Kosec, Katrina |
| Abstract: | Can private-sector participation (PSP) in the urban piped water sector improve child health? The author uses child-level data from 39 African countries during 1986–2010 to show that introducing PSP decreases diarrhea among urban dwelling children under five years of age by 5.6 percentage points, or 35 percent of its mean prevalence. |
| Keywords: | Privatization, Public health, Water supply, urban population, Children, Government policy, Water management, Water policies, Public policy, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1269&r=afr |
| By: | Kuku, Oluyemisi; Mathiassen, Astrid; Wadhwa, Amit; Myles, Lucy; Ajibola, Akeem |
| Abstract: | The Nigerian Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) provides an in-depth assessment of the food security situation within Nigeria. This is very important as it equips policymakers with timely and relevant information that will aid the targeting of interventions. |
| Keywords: | food security, Vulnerability, Nutrition, Livelihoods, Development strategies, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1275&r=afr |
| By: | Calderone, Margherita; Maystadt, Jean-Francois; You, Liangzhi |
| Abstract: | Weather shocks and natural disasters, it has been argued, represent a major threat to national and international security. Our paper contributes to the emerging micro-level strand of the literature on the link between local variations in weather shocks and conflict by focusing on a pixel-level analysis for North and South Sudan at different geographical and time scales between 1997 and 2009. Temperature anomalies are found to strongly affect the risk of conflict. In the future the risk is expected to magnify in a range of 21 to 30 percent under a median scenario, taking into account uncertainties in both the climate projection and the estimate of the response of violence to temperature variations. Extreme temperature shocks are found to strongly affect the likelihood of violence as well, but the predictive power is hindered by substantial uncertainty. Our paper also sheds light on the vulnerability of areas with particular biophysical characteristics or with vulnerable populations. |
| Keywords: | Weather, Shocks, Conflict, Vulnerability, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1276&r=afr |
| By: | Ciani, Federico (University of Florence); Giannelli, Gianna Claudia (University of Florence) |
| Abstract: | Between April and July 1994 Rwanda experienced a tremendous wave of inter-ethnic violence that caused at least 500,000 deaths. Combining birth history data drawn from the 2000 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey with prefecture-level information on the intensity of the conflict, we examine the impact of the civil war on infant and child mortality. War exposure is measured exploiting the differential effects of timing of birth and genocide intensity at the household and geographic level. Considering both in utero and postnatal war exposure, we estimate discrete time proportional hazard models of child mortality for the exposed and the unexposed birth cohorts. We find large positive effects of exposure to the conflict on infant and child mortality. Moreover, restricting our sample to the survivors, we find that child mortality is significantly impacted by war exposure, increasing the hazard rate by nearly 6 percentage points on average. This result holds true also for children who were only exposed while in utero. This evidence points to the existence of long-term disruptive effects on the cohorts of children exposed to the violence. |
| Keywords: | genocide, child mortality, child health, survival analysis, Rwanda |
| JEL: | I20 J13 O12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7539&r=afr |
| By: | Caria, Antonia Stefano; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku |
| Abstract: | In this study we focus on exclusion from job contact networks, which constitutes a major disadvantage for labor market participants in settings where referral hiring is common and information about jobs hard to obtain. In a mid-size town in northern Ethiopia, where these mechanisms are at work, we observe that many individuals do not access local job contact networks. Models of strategic network formation and behavioral decision theory suggest that given the right incentives, job contact networks should be more inclusive. On these grounds we hypothesize that workers would link to peripheral peers when this maximizes their chances of referral and when self-regarding concerns are absent due to social preferences. |
| Keywords: | social network, Labor market, field experiment, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1282&r=afr |
| By: | Mkhize, Hans P Binswanger; Savastano, Sara |
| Keywords: | Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, International Development, International Relations/Trade, Livestock Production/Industries, |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iatr13:152377&r=afr |
| By: | Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Edeh, Hyacinth |
| Keywords: | Irrigation, household models, Typology, households, Farm households, Farm household model, Cluster analysis, Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS), rice, Grain, Vegetable products, legumes, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1267&r=afr |
| By: | Robin Burgess; Remi Jedwab; Edward Miguel; Ameet Morjaria; Gerard Padro i Miquel |
| Abstract: | Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantifi cation of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963-2011 period. Guided by a model it then examines whether the transition in and out of democracy under the same president constrains or exacerbates ethnic favoritism. Across the 1963 to 2011 period, we fi nd strong evidence of ethnic favoritism: districts that share the ethnicity of the president receive twice as much expenditure on roads and have four times the length of paved roads built. This favoritism disappears during periods of democracy. |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:stieop:45&r=afr |
| By: | Fiedler, John L.; Kilkuwe, Enoch M.; Birol, Ekin |
| Abstract: | Using the Ugandan National Household Survey of 2005/06, we analyzed the production and consumption patterns of highland cooking banana (nakinyika) and sweet banana (sukalindizi). Informed by the empirical findings, we developed geographically differentiated adoption, production, consumption, and diffusion patterns for several types of HPVAHIB. Based on households’ reported quantities of each type of banana currently consumed, we estimated the number of people consuming each banana and the quantities they consume, and then simulated the additional intakes of vitamin A and iron and estimated the number of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) saved attributable to each. |
| Keywords: | Nutrition, Biofortification, cost benefit analysis, Vitamin A, banana, Micronutrients, Vitamin A deficiency, Iron supplementation, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1277&r=afr |