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101. Agricultural development for poverty reduction – some options in support of public policy interventions

Author:
Helle Munk Ravnborg and Julio A. Berdegué
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
A renewed focus on agriculture is emerging among donor organizations. In 2005, The World Bank published its report Agricultural Growth for the Poor. An Agenda for Development and Dfid published a policy paper entitled Growth and poverty reduction: the role of agriculture, and soon, the World Development Report 2008 entitled Agriculture for Development will be published. The key concern driving this renewed focus is the wish to increase the contribution of agriculture and agricultural growth to poverty reduction. This DIIS brief provides a short introduction to the main messages of the above documents and proposes five main elements of a strategy for supporting public policy interventions in favour of pro-poor agricultural growth.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa

102. An Urban-Rural Focus on Food Markets in Africa

Author:
Clare Romanik
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Urban Institute
Abstract:
This paper takes an urban-rural focus on sub-Saharan Africa (hereafter: Africa) food markets, arguing that the structure of food demand is changing with urbanization and that policies and programs should focus on what will help both the very poor rural producers and the large number of very poor urban consumers in African cities. Aside from migration, improved access to markets is the most likely way for poor rural populations to improve their livelihoods. The growing numbers of very poor urban dwellers mean that policymakers need to consider how to keep food prices affordable without recreating the subsidies that stifled economic growth in the past. Experts on economic growth in Africa note that among all regions of the world, Africa trades the least within its region. Increasing access to domestic and regional markets is seen as key to poverty reduction, food security, and economic growth, as well as a necessary step to improve the continent's capacity to trade with the rest of the world (USAID 2005).
Topic:
Agriculture
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

103. Gender, Local Knowledge, and Lessons Learnt in Documenting and Conserving Agrobiodiversity

Author:
Regina Laub and Yianna Lambrou
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper explores the linkages between gender, local knowledge systems and agrobiodiversity for food security by using the case study of LinKS, a regional FAO project in Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Tanzania over a period of eight years and now concluded. The project aimed to raise awareness on how rural men and women use and manage agrobiodiversity, and to promote the importance of local knowledge for food security and sustainable agrobiodiversity at local, institutional and policy levels by working with a diverse range of stakeholders to strengthen their ability to recognize and value farmers' knowledge and to use gender-sensitive and participatory approaches in their work. This was done through three key activities: capacity building, research and communication. The results of the LinKS study show clearly that men and women farmers hold very specific local knowledge about the plants and animals they manage. Local knowledge, gender and agrobiodiversity are closely interrelated. If one of these elements is threatened, the risk of losing agrobiodiversity increases, having negative effects on food security. Increased productivity, economic growth and agricultural productivity are important elements in poverty reduction. The diverse and complex agroecological environment of Sub-Saharan Africa requires that future efforts be based on more localized solutions while maintaining a global outlook. Food security will have to build much more on local knowledge and agrobiodiversity with a clear understanding of gender implications while keeping in mind the continuously changing global socioeconomic and political conditions.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland

104. An Overview of the Certified Organic Export Sector in Uganda

Author:
Peter Gibbon
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper reports the results of a survey of almost all certified and in-conversion organic export operations in Uganda in late 2005. It covers products exported, company size and ownership, standards exported to, certification costs, total export values, value-added in Uganda, marketing channels, crop procurement systems, management of organic operations and the main challenges experienced by exporters. Findings include that numbers of certified exporters are growing rapidly. Export values are also growing, but more slowly: They reached USD 6.2 million in 2005. A handful of firms exporting coffee and cotton dominate the sector and this situation is likely to remain. Though the sector is maturing, most recent entrants are small, relatively weak and currently depend on donor support.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

105. Love Thy Neighbour? Evidence from Ethnic Discrimination in Information Sharing within Villages

Author:
Mattia Romani
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
There is increasing evidence to suggest that a fundamental source of information for farmers on how to access and use new agricultural technologies comes from interacting with neighbours. Economic research on adoption of innovations in a rural context has only partially addressed the issue of how the social structure of a village can affect adoption and the final impact on productivity of farmers. This paper investigates the role of proximity interpreted not only in geographical terms but also along the line of ethnic similarities among neighbours (what we define as 'social proximity'). We use a panel dataset collected in Côte d'Ivoire to define the probability of accessing the knowledge network. The main results indicate that farmers from ethnic minorities are less likely to access, and benefit less from, extension services. But they seem to try to re-equalize their condition by putting more effort than dominant ethnic group neighbours in sharing information among themselves.
Topic:
Agriculture, Demographics, Economics, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Africa

106. Concepts and Experiences with Demand Driven Advisory Services

Author:
Esben Friis-Hansen
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The current institutional framework for agricultural services in East and Southern Africa was designed for a state-sponsored supply-driven approach. These institutions demand large field staff levels and are associated with high costs often financed by World Bank loans. These institutions are moreover ill-suited to respond to the demands from clients that are now emerging through development interventions and policies. Farmers are marginally involved with planning the content and means of service provision. Top-down approaches also fail to target agricultural services to women and vulnerable groups. Demand-driven advisory services have evolved over recent years and involve changing the role of extension agents from advisors to facilitators; increasing control by farmers through cost sharing; increasing the use of contracted services; and emphasizing knowledge provision rather then narrow technical advice.
Topic:
Agriculture and Economics
Political Geography:
Africa

107. Poverty reduction, civil society, farmer innovation and agricultural service provision, Uganda

Author:
Jannik Boesen, Sarah Kasozi, and Richard Miiro
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper looks at the potential for poverty alleviation in one part of Uganda, based on a poverty analysis of the local, and on analyses of the local civil society and of development discourses that are often dominated by the central over the local. In response to calls for micro-studies of actually existing civil society it points to the usefulness of including community wide processes and hegemonic discourses in analyses of the local civil society's development role.
Topic:
Agriculture, Civil Society, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

108. Gendered district poverty profiles and poverty monitoring Kabarole, Masaka, Pallisa, Rakai and Tororo districts, Uganda

Author:
Helle Munk Ravnborg, Michael Kidoido, Zarupa Akello, Jannik Boesen, Sarah Kasozi, Anne Sorensen, Bernard Bashaasha, and Veronica Wabukawo
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The overall objective of the Danida supported Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS) in Uganda is to improve the conditions for the poorest part of the population and contribute to reduce gender-based inequalities in Uganda in general and in the pilot focus districts in particular. Late in 2000, Danida asked Department of Agricultural Economics, Makerere University, Kampala, and Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen, to form an external task group with the purpose of monitoring the gender and poverty impact of the ASPS.
Topic:
Agriculture, Civil Society, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

109. Take the State Back Out? Comparing French Responses to Globalization in Agriculture and Shipping

Author:
Mark Aspinwall and Imtiaz Hussain
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
How autonomous is a state in today's highly interdependent international economy to pursue policies that diverge widely from the international norm? Does the degree of autonomy vary for different domestic sectors? We adapt and apply Benjamin Cohen's unholy trinity model (1993), to a comparative assessment of how France responded to globalization over agriculture and shipping, focusing on three dimensions—investment, transaction costs, and government policy responses. Although France is reputed to possess a strong state machinery (Katzenstein, 1987; Wilson, 1987; Skocpol, 1985), our analysis raises qualifications. On the one hand, regardless of government policy intentions, we find irreversible forms of disinvestment in both sectors, though different in nature—geographic for shipping, and functional for agriculture; on the other, we also find continued dependence upon the state—for aid in shipping and resisting free trade in agriculture. We further find that, although internal and endogenous, as well as external and exogenous, factors influence policy-making, the nature of these factors are different for the two sectors. We conclude by drawing implications of our findings for state-society relations and European integration.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and France

110. Trade Liberalization, Agriculture, and Poverty in Low-income Countries

Author:
Kym Anderson
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper offers an economic assessment of the opportunities and challenges provided by the WTO's Doha Development Agenda, particularly through agricultural trade liberalization, for low-income countries seeking to trade their way out of poverty. After discussing links between poverty, economic growth and trade, it reports modelling results showing that farm product markets remain the most costly of all goods market distortions in world trade. It focuses on what such reform might mean for countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in particular, both without and with their involvement in the MTN reform process. What becomes clear is that if those countries want to maximize their benefits from the Doha round, they need also to free up their own domestic product and factor markets so their farmers are better able to take advantage of new market-opening opportunities abroad. Other concerns of low-income countries about farm trade reform also are addressed: whether there would be losses associated with tariff preference erosion, whether food-importing countries would suffer from higher food prices in international markets, whether China's WTO accession will provide an example of trade reform aggravating poverty via cuts to prices received by Chinese farmers, and the impact on food security and poverty alleviation. The paper concludes with lessons of relevance for low-income countries for their own domestic and trade policies.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Emerging Markets, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa and China