Download or read book Cities and rural transformation A spatial analysis of rural youth livelihoods in Ghana written by Diao, Xinshen and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urbanization has had a major impact on livelihoods in Ghana and throughout Africa as a whole. However, much research on urbanization has focused on effects occurring within cities, while there is insufficient understanding of its effects on rural areas. This paper examines the impact of urbanization—through a typology of districts—on rural livelihoods in Ghana. The country’s districts are classified into seven spatial groups according to the size of the largest city in each district in southern and northern Ghana. The paper does not address rural–urban migration but instead focuses on the livelihoods of rural households. In contrast to the extensive literature focusing on the effects of urbanization on individuals, we assess its impacts on individual rural households as a whole, with a particular focus on youth-headed households. Many rural households have shifted their primary employment from agriculture to nonagriculture, especially in the more urbanized South. In contrast, change in livelihood diversification within rural households with family members’ primary employment in both agriculture and nonagriculture appears much less rapid. Rural youth-headed households are significantly more associated with the transition away from agriculture than households headed by other adults, and such trends are stronger in locations closer to larger cities, particularly in the South. Although the nonagricultural economy is becoming increasingly important for rural households, contrary to expectations, the probit model analysis in this paper shows that agricultural production does not appear to be more intensified—in terms of modern input use—in the more urbanized South, and youth do not show greater agricultural technology adoption than other adults, indicating that the constraints against modern input adoption may be binding for all farmers, including youth and farmers in more urbanized locations. We also find that rural poverty rates are consistently lower among nonagricultural households, and the share of middle-class population is also disproportionally higher among rural nonagricultural households than agricultural households. While the probit analysis confirms the positive relationship between being a nonagricultural household and being nonpoor or becoming middle class after controlling for all other factors, education seems to play the biggest role. As rural youth become more educated and more households shift from agriculture to the rural nonfarm economy, a different range of technologies for agricultural intensification is necessary for agriculture to be attractive for youth. A territorial approach and related policies that integrate secondary cities and small towns with the rural economy deserve more attention such that the diversification of rural livelihoods can become a viable alternative or complement to rural–urban migration for youth.

Download or read book A Spatial Analysis of Youth Livelihoods and Rural Transformation in Ghana written by Silver, Jed and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-06-09 with total page 3 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana’s population is becoming younger and increasingly urbanized – by 2010, over half the population lived in urban settlements of more than 5,000 people – raising concerns among policy makers regarding the location and types of jobs required to employ the youth. The slow creation of for-mal urban jobs has particularly strong implications for young people entering the labor force: they are more educated than the older generation, with greater aspirations for non-farm em-ployment and urban lifestyles (Anyidoho, Leavy, and Asenso-Okyere 2012). Without rapid industrialization to create more formal manufacturing and other non-agricultural jobs, youth in Ghana who leave the agricultural sector are increasingly likely to resort to informal services in both rural and urban areas. While much youth-related research has focused on changes in youth employment and livelihoods through rural-urban migration, a re-cent IFPRI Discussion Paper focuses on youth in the rural non-farm economy (Diao et al. 2017).

Download or read book Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa written by Valerie Mueller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people believe that Africa will struggle to create jobs for its rapidly-growing population, and that rural youth will eventually migrate to cities or other countries. This book uses survey data to create a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa.

Download or read book Measures and Determinants of Urban Food Security Evidence from Accra Ghana written by Tukolske, Cascade and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2018-11-22 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The urban population in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) is expected to expand rapidly from 376 million people in 2015 to more than 1.25 billion people by 2050. Measuring and ensuring food security among urban households will become an increasingly pertinent task for development researchers and practitioners. In this paper we characterize food security among a sample of low- and middle-income residents of Accra, Ghana, using 2017 survey data. We find that households tend to purchase food from traditional markets, local stalls and kiosks, and street hawkers, and rarely from modern supermarkets. We characterize food security using three established metrics: the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS); the Household Food Insecurity Access Prevalence (HFIAP); and the Food Consumption Score (FCS). We then estimate the determinants of food security using general linear models. The food security metrics are not strongly correlated. For example, according to HFIAP, as many as 70 percent of households sampled are food insecure, but only 2 percent fall below acceptable thresholds measured by FCS. Model results show that household education, assets, and dwelling characteristics are significantly associated with food security according to HFIAS and HFIAP, but not with FCS. The poor correlation and weak model agreement between the dietary recall metric, FCS, and the experience-based metrics, HFIAS and HFIAP, call for closer attention to measurement of urban food security. Given Africa’s urban future, our findings highlight the need for an urban-oriented comprehensive approach to the food security of urban households.

Download or read book The returns to empowerment in diversified rural household Evidence from Niger written by Wouterse, Fleur Stephanie and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Niger is a landlocked Sahelian country, two-thirds of which is in the Sahara Desert. Although only one-eighth of the land considered arable, the overwhelming majority of Niger’s households is involved in rain-fed agriculture largely for subsistence. Given erratic rainfall and low soil fertility, most smallholders fail to produce enough food to meet household requirements. Income diversification is thus the norm among these rural households and different income-generating activities offer alternative pathways out of poverty for households as well as a mechanism for managing risk in an uncertain environment. Empowerment is likely to be an important factor affecting the ability of households to diversity their activity portfolio and may also affect activity-incomes and thereby household welfare. In this study, I use new household- and individual-level empowerment data from the Tahoua region of Niger and regression analysis to quantify the effects of a range of human capital measures including empowerment on the activity portfolio and activity incomes of rural households. My findings reveal that empowerment in particular plays an important role in enabling households to engage in mixed diversification strategy, which combines staple cropping with nonfarm activities and migration. This is a “last resort” strategy for households in lower landholding quintiles to ensure food security and complement an inadequate resource base. Controlling for activity choice, three empowerment indicators in particular—confidence, group membership, and tenure security—strongly and positively affect income from staple and cash cropping, which on average makes up about 90 percent of household income. In fact, empowerment is the only human capital variable that strongly and positively affects total household income, opening up interesting avenues for policy interventions aimed at augmenting a household’s noncognitive ability through, for example, leadership training or encouraging producer group membership—to increase incomes of the rural poor.

Download or read book Prospects for the Myanmar rubber sector An analysis of the viability of smallholder production in Mon State written by Van Asselt, Joanna and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a result of recent political reforms, Myanmar has the opportunity to enact major policy changes to reinvigorate its agriculture sector. In this context, Myanmar’s rubber sector has the potential to become an even greater source of export earnings and rural household incomes, but there are major challenges related to low rubber productivity and poor rubber quality. Using data from the Mon State Rural Household Survey (MSRHS) conducted from May to June 2015, as well as qualitative data collected from rubber producer focus groups and other interviews with rubber producers, traders, and processors, this paper describes the cost structure of rubber production in Mon State. We then estimate smallholder production costs and the profitability of smallholder rubber production under various alternative yield and price scenarios. The results suggest that if the weaknesses hindering the profitability of the rubber sector are not addressed, the rubber sector will likely stagnate. Moreover, in the absence of a major increase in world prices (substantially above the 2000–2016 average), new rubber investments will not be profitable without major improvements in yield and quality. Further, increasing only yields or only quality, or only improving the institutional environment, will not result in positive returns on investment for smallholders; reforms are needed in all three areas. If these weaknesses are addressed, however, Myanmar’s new investments will be profitable and Myanmar could become an important rubber producer and exporter on the world stage.

Download or read book Gender research in the CGIAR research program on policies institutions and markets in 2018 and 2019 written by Vos, Andrea and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report analyses PIM’s 391 peer-reviewed 2018 and 20191 publications. We highlight key gender findings and discuss the challenges faced by researchers in doing gender analysis, with a view to documenting lessons learned and improving practices. It is hoped that the gaps and strengths identified in this report will be useful inputs for future research under PIM and One CGIAR.

Download or read book A chicken and maize situation The poultry feed sector in Ghana written by Andam, Kwaw S. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study focuses on the feed milling industry, which serves as the link between maize and poultry, through a field assessment of feed millers in Ghana. The findings establish the importance of feed in the poultry value chain. In addition, they show how the sector has become more integrated with poultry production, especially on larger-scale poultry farms. Because maize accounts for 60 percent of poultry feed, its availability and price have important implications for the profitability and growth potential of feed and, therefore, for poultry production as well. We illustrate these linkages by means of a simple spatial market equilibrium model that ties together the three sectors of the poultry value chain: the primary inputs (maize and soybeans), intermediate inputs (feed), and final products (meat and eggs). This model also enables us to assess the future growth potential of the poultry industry given alternative policy-driven changes in productivity and the production capacities of all three sectors. The results show that for poultry meat, replacing imports with domestic production in the short term would be nearly impossible. For the egg industry, however, there is potential for Ghana to export to neighboring countries by reducing production costs through improvements in yellow maize production.

Download or read book Agriculture and economic transformation in the Middle East and North Africa A review of the past with lessons for the future written by Nin-Pratt, Alejandro and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-12-31 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The agriculture sector is key for economic and social development, but the sector’s potential has not received enough attention from policy makers and stakeholders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Political transitions, instability, and the resulting refugee crisis have shifted focus away from other pressing development challenges, including slow progress in economic diversification, high unemployment, and persistent high food insecurity and rural poverty. Despite its small contribution to GDP, agriculture is strategic for sustainable development in the MENA countries. Agriculture, for example, is central to achieve food and water security in a region characterized as one of the most food insecure and water scarce in the world. The sector’s role in employment is also central, given the region’s high structural unemployment. However, it will not be possible for MENA countries to develop agriculture without a pathway to structural economic transformation. The region has already started the process of transformation but longstanding challenges remain. This report aims to examine the drivers, constraints, and social implications of agricultural development in MENA and to explore possible cornerstones for new and sustainable development strategies in the context of economic transformation. More specifically, the report provides answers to the following questions: • What development strategies and policies did governments in MENA put in place over the past three decades and how did they affect the performance of agriculture? • How did the structural characteristics of the MENA countries affect agricultural development and the economic transformation process in the region? • What did we learn from the past performance of agriculture? What should be the central elements guiding future agricultural policies? • What are elements of a new and sustainable development strategy in MENA countries? • What is the role of agriculture and agro-industries for development in MENA?

Download or read book Economic transformation in Africa from the bottom up Evidence from Tanzania written by Diao, Xinshen and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At roughly 4 percent per year, labor productivity in Tanzania has grown more rapidly over the past 14 years than at any other time in recent history. Employment growth has also been strong, keeping up with population growth at roughly 2.5 percent per year; the bulk of employment growth (90 percent) has been in the nonagricultural sector. However, the vast majority of this nonagricultural employment growth has occurred in informal sector. Using Tanzania’s first nationally representative survey of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises, this paper shows that firms in the informal sector contributed roughly half a percentage point to economywide labor productivity growth in Tanzania between 2002 and 2012. However, virtually all of the labor productivity growth contributed by informal firms came from a small subset of firms called the “in-between firms.” This paper considers attributes of the in-between firms that could be used for targeting financial and business services to firms with the potential to grow. This paper finds two salient characteristics of in-between firms that might lend themselves to targeting—their owners are more likely to keep written accounts and more likely to keep their savings in formal bank accounts.

Download or read book The European Union West Africa Economic Partnership Agreement written by Bouët, Antoine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite recent modifications, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and West African (WA) countries is still being criticized for its potential detrimental effects on WA countries. This paper provides updated evidence on the impact of the EPA on these countries. A dynamic multicountry, multisector computable general equilibrium trade model with modeling of the dual-dual economy and with a consistent tariff aggregator is used to simulate a series of new scenarios that include updated information on the agreement. We also go beyond estimating macrolevel economic effects to analyze the impacts on poverty. The policy simulation results show that the implementation of the EPA between the EU and WA countries would have marginal but positive impacts on Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire and negative impacts on Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. The impact on poverty indicators in Ghana and Nigeria would be marginal. From the perspective of WA countries, this study supports the view that recent EU concessions are not sufficient and that domestic fiscal reforms are needed in WA countries themselves.

Download or read book Institutional versus noninstitutional credit to agricultural households in India Evidence on impact from a national farmers survey written by Kumar, Anjani and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A goal of agricultural policy in India has been to reduce farmers’ dependence on informal credit. To that end, recent initiatives have been focused explicitly on rural areas and have had a positive impact on the flow of agricultural credit. But despite the significance of these initiatives in enhancing the flow of institutional credit to agriculture, the links between institutional credit and net farm income and consumption expenditures in India are not very well documented. Using a large national farm household–level dataset and instrumental variables two-stage least squares estimation methods, we investigate the impact of institutional farm credit on farm income and farm household consumption expenditures. Our findings show that in India, formal credit is indeed playing a critical role in increasing both the net farm income and per capita monthly household expenditures of Indian farm families. We also find that, in the presence of formal credit, social safety net programs such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) may have unintended consequences. In particular, MGNREGA reduces both net farm income and per capita monthly household consumption expenditures. In contrast, in the presence of formal credit, the Public Distribution System may increase both net farm income and per capita monthly household consumption expenditures.

Download or read book How do agricultural development projects aim to empower women Insights from an analysis of project strategies written by Johnson, Nancy L. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasing numbers of development agencies and individual projects espouse objectives of women’s empowerment, yet there has been little systematic work on mechanisms by which interventions can enhance women’s empowerment. This gap exists because of the lack of consensus on indicators as well as the lack of attention paid to measuring the effects of different types of interventions on empowerment. This paper identifies the types of strategies employed by 13 agricultural development projects within the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project Phase 2 (GAAP2) that have explicit objectives of empowering women. We distinguish between reach, benefit, and empowerment as objectives of agricultural development projects. Simply including women does not necessarily benefit them, and even activities that benefit do not necessarily empower. To identify strategies to empower women, we build on the domains included in the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and are working with the GAAP2 portfolio of projects to develop an empowerment metric that is applicable in the project setting (a project-level WEAI, or pro-WEAI). We have identified the following potential domains to be included in pro-WEAI: input into production decision making, control over resources, control over income, leadership, time, physical mobility, intrahousehold relationships, individual empowerment, reduction in gender-based violence, and decision making on nutrition. The GAAP2 projects address these domains through a wide variety of activities that can be grouped into four main types: (1) direct and indirect provision of goods and services; (2) forming or strengthening groups, organizations, or platforms and networks that involve women; (3) strengthening knowledge and capacity through agricultural extension, business and finance training, nutrition behavior change communication, and other training; and (4) changing gender norms through one-way awareness raising or two-way community conversations about gender issues and their implications. In general, projects with activities in more activity areas target more domains of empowerment, and most projects target a core set of six empowerment domains. With the exception of intrahousehold relationships, which is always targeted by activities designed to influence gender norms, projects target domains with different types of activities or combinations of activities. This setup suggests that there may be no one-to-one link between a specific activity and empowerment benefits, and that implementation modalities will determine whether and how an activity contributes to women’s empowerment. The effectiveness of these project strategies will be assessed using both quantitative and qualitative methods throughout the GAAP2 research project.

Download or read book Can better targeting improve the effectiveness of Ghana s Fertilizer Subsidy Program written by Houssou, Nazaire and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite improvements to the implementation regime of Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy program, this paper shows that considerable challenges remain in ensuring that the subsidy is targeted to farmers who need fertilizer the most. Currently, larger-scale and wealthier farmers are the main beneficiaries of subsidized fertilizer even though the stated goal is to target smallholder farmers with fertilizer subsidies. The experience of other African countries suggests that the effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies can improve with effective targeting of resource-poor smallholders. However, targeting smallholder farmers entails significant transaction costs and may even be infeasible in some cases. Faced with such challenges, Ghanaian policy makers must ponder the question of how to improve the targeting of input subsidy programs in the country. Further research is needed to identify more cost-effective approaches for achieving the goal of targeting.

Download or read book Forced gifts The burden of being a friend written by Bulte, Erwin and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many developing countries, gift expenses account for a substantial share of total household expenditures. As incomes rise, gift expenses are escalating in several developing countries. We develop a theoretical model to demonstrate how (unequal) income growth may trigger “gift competition” and drive up the financial burden associated with gift exchange. We use unique census-type panel data from rural China to test our model predictions and demonstrate that (1) the value of gifts responds to the average gift in the community, (2) the escalation of gift giving may have adverse welfare implications (especially for the poor), and (3) escalating gift expenses crowd out expenditures on other consumption items.

Download or read book He says she says Exploring patterns of spousal agreement in Bangladesh written by Ambler, Kate and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Participation in household decisions and control over assets are often used as indicators of bargaining power. Yet spouses do not necessarily provide the same answers to questions about these topics. We examine differences in spouses’ answers to questions regarding who participates in decisions about household activities, who owns assets, and who decides to purchase assets. Disagreement is substantial and systematic, with women more likely to report joint ownership or decision making and men more likely to report sole male ownership or decision making. Analysis of correlations between agreement and women’s well-being finds that agreement on joint decision making/ownership is generally positively associated with beneficial outcomes for women compared with agreement on sole male decision making/ownership. Cases of disagreement where women recognize their involvement but men do not are also positively associated with good outcomes for women, but often to a lesser extent than when men agree that women are involved.

Download or read book Agricultural mechanization in Ghana Insights from a recent field study written by Diao, Xinshen and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana is one of a few African countries where agricultural mechanization has recently undergone rapid development. Except for places in the forest zone where stumps are still an issue in fields, tractors used for plowing and maize shelling have been widely adopted even among small farmers. Medium- and large-scale farmers who own tractors provide the majority of mechanization services. Recognizing this fundamental fact is important for designing any effective mechanization policy, which should aim at the entire service market instead of targeting a selected group of service providers as beneficiaries. Tractor owners and operators are often discouraged from traveling long distances to plow only a few acres for individual small farmers, which becomes a considerable barrier for smallholders to access tractor services on time. This requires the government consider mechanisms to improve coordination among small farmers and to encourage Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) to facilitate such coordination. The use of harrowing or second-plowing has been shown as a productivity-enhancing farming practice but it is currently under-demanded by farmers. A pilot program to address the coordination failures and to nudge small farmers to adopt harrowing services together can be considered.