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Impacts of a pro-poor community driven development project in Nigeria
No full textPoverty remains entrenched in Nigeria, where 70 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. In response, the Nigerian government launched the Second National Fadama Development Project (Fadama II) in 2005. Based on the community-driven development (CDD) approach, the project aims to generate income for beneficiaries, empower local communities, and improve the way governments reach poor and vulnerable groups, such as women, the elderly, disabled, and people with HIV/AIDS.--Authors' AbstractNon-PRIFPRI1; GRP39; NSSP; Land Resource Management for Poverty ReductionEPTD; DSG
The false promise of participation?
No full text"Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, such approaches are frequently criticized for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. By analyzing the role of stakeholder participation in the formulation of agricultural and rural development strategies in West Africa, this paper finds that a lack of broad-based participation in these strategies was not a major problem. Rather, the real challenge lies in transforming the outcomes of participatory processes into policies that can be feasibly implemented. The paper highlights why an emphasis on participatory processes can sometimes result in disappointment among stakeholders and discusses a range of measures to help overcome this dilemma. " --from authors' abstractNon-PRIFPRI1; GRP37DSG
Developing evidence for agricultural and rural development policies and strategies in Nigeria
No full text"Bridging the research and policy divide remains a top priority on the Nigerian federal government's agenda. This renewed commitment paved the way for the Agricultural Support Facility Project (APSF), which seeks to, among other things, create an environment and produce evidence on specific policy issues facing the Nigerian agricultural sector that allows for a more inclusive design and implementation of evidence-based, pro-poor, gender sensitive, and environmentally sustainable agricultural and rural development policies and strategies in Nigeria. The conviction that the policymaking process should benefit from stakeholders' active participation led APSF to organize a stakeholder workshop to serve as a forum for addressing issues emanating from the evidence being generated by the facility. The workshop objectives were to: share progress on implementing APSF; discuss current research findings; and dialogue with stakeholders on upcoming activities (see Appendix A for Agenda). The workshop brought together participants from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources (FMAWR), the National Planning Commission (NPC), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF), the Federal Ministry of Commerce and Industry (FMCI), the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the donor community, academia, farmers' organizations and the private sector. This executive summary provides an overview of the research findings, highlights key group discussion points, and provides next steps." --from textNon-PRIFPRI1; NSSPDSG
Impacts of a pro-poor community-driven development project in Nigeria
No full textThe community-driven development (CDD) approach has become increasingly popular because of its potential to develop projects that are sustainable, are responsive to local priorities, empower local communities, and more effectively target poor and vulnerable groups. The purpose of this study is to assess the impacts of Fadama II, which is a CDD project and the largest agricultural project in Nigeria. This study used propensity score matching (PSM) to select 1728 comparable project beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. The study also used double difference methods to compare the impact indicators. Our results show that Fadama II project succeeded in targeting the poor and women farmers in its productive asset acquisition component. Participation in the project also increased the income of beneficiaries by about 60 percent, which is well above the targeted increase of only 20 percent in the six year period of the project. Regarding rural infrastructure investments, we found that the Fadama II project had positive near-term impacts on beneficiaries� access to markets and transportation costs, although the study revealed surprising effects on beneficiaries� commercial behavior and statistically insignificant impacts on nonfarm activities. We also observed that Fadama II increased the demand for postharvest handling technologies but did not have a significant impact on the demand for financial management and market information. Fadama II reduced the demand for soil fertility management technologies. The decline likely reflects the project�s focus on providing postproduction advisory services and suggests the need for the project to increase its support for soil fertility management and thus limit the potential for land degradation resulting from increased agricultural productivity. Overall, the Fadama II project has achieved its goal of increasing the incomes of the beneficiaries in the first year of its operation. The project has also succeeded in targeting the poor and vulnerable in its productive-asset component, even though that did not appear to increase significantly short-term household incomes among the poorest asset tercile. The unique feature that could have contributed to the significant impact of the project in a short time is its broad-based approach, which addresses the major constraints limiting the success of CDD projects that address only one or two constraints. This has implications on planning poverty reduction efforts in low-income countries. Given that the poor face numerous constraints, a CDD project that simultaneously addresses many constraints will likely build synergies that will lead to larger impacts than will a project that addresses only one or two constraints. This suggests the need for the government and donors to pool resources and initiate multipronged CDD projects rather than many isolated projects.--Author's AbstractNon-PRIFPRI1; GRP39; Land Resource Management for Poverty ReductionEPTD; DSG
The state of collective action and its effects on natural resources and rural livelihoods
No full textSpatial and temporal attributes of watersheds and the associated market failures that accelerate degradation of agricultural and environmental resources require innovative institutional arrangements for coordinating use and management of resources. Effective collective action (CA) allows smallholder farmers to jointly invest in management practices that provide collective benefits in terms of economic and sustainability gains. The Government of India takes integrated watershed management (IWM) as a key strategy for improving productivity and livelihoods in the rain-fed and drought-prone regions. This study investigates the institutional and policy issues that limit effective participation of people in community watershed programs and identifies key determinants for the degree of CA and its effectiveness in achieving economic and environmental outcomes. We use empirical data from a survey of 87 watershed communities in semi-arid Indian villages to identify a set of indicators of CA and its performance in attaining desired outcomes. Factor analysis is used to develop aggregate indices of CA and its effectiveness. Regression methods are then employed to test the effects of certain policy relevant variables and to determine the potential effects of CA in achieving desired poverty reduction and resource improvement outcomes. We find a positive and highly significant effect of CA on natural resource investments, but no evidence of its effects on household assets and poverty reduction outcomes. This may be attributable to longer gestation periods for realizing indirect effects from collective natural resource investments and the lack of institutional mechanisms to ensure equitable distribution of such gains across the community, including the landless and marginal farmers.Non-PRIFPRI1; Theme 3; CAPRiEPT
from knowledge to action
No full textA wide range of issues are captured and reiterated in the 12 briefs contained in this collection. These include: the prevalence and importance of customary tenure; the prevalence and importance of common property arrangements; constraints to women’s access under both customary and statutory tenure; the need to secure common property and other forms of tenure; and the importance of broad based participation to secure broad consensus among multiple actors in order to enhance the efficiency, equity and sustainability objectives of land tenure reforms. The briefs also reflect on the innovations necessary for securing tenure for the poor under a variety of settings. These innovations include: • adjusting received law to customary norms and rules of land holding and access, as opposed to outright replacing customary tenure • altering lending rules by banks and financial institutions to promote land-related investments (even on land regulated by customary and/or religious law) • de-emphasizing the notion of ownership and refocusing on use rights in order to secure women’s rights and access • restructuring conventional land administration systems to support group-based rights structures • encouraging decentralized land management systems that reflect local cultural norms and practices • in situations of multiple, overlapping resource use, strengthening processes of negotiation and conflict resolution as opposed to a generic concern with substantive rights in order to secure the access of permanent and transitory resource users.CONTENTS: Introduction / Esther Mwangi and Eric Patrick; Land Tenure, Land Reform, and the Management of Land and Natural Resources in Africa / Joan Kagwanja; Legal Dualism and Land Policy in Eastern and Southern Africa / Martin Adams and Stephen Turner; Legal Pluralism as a Policy Option: Is it Desirable? Is it Doable? / Patrick McAuslan; Gender Issues in Land Tenure under Customary Law / Patricia Kameri-Mbote; Innovations in Land Tenure, Reform and Administration in Africa / Clarissa Augustinus and Klaus Deininger; The Commons and Customary Law in Modern Times: Rethinking the Orthodoxies / Liz Alden Wily; Biting the Bullet: How to Secure Access to Drylands Resources for Multiple Users / Esther Mwangi and Stephan Dohrn; Decentralization: An Enabling Policy for Local Land Management / Hubert M.G. Ouedraogo; Will Formalizing Property Rights Reduce Poverty in South Africa's "Second Economy"? Questioning Mythologies of Hernando de Soto / Ben Cousins, Tessa Cousins, Donna Hornby, Rosalie Kingwill, Lauren Royston, and Warren Smit; Getting the Process Right: The Experience of the Uganda Land Alliance in Uganda / Oscar Okech K. and Harriet Busingye; Getting Agreement on Land Tenure Reform: The Case of Zambia / Joseph Mbinji; The Land Policy Process in Burkina Faso: Building a National Consensus / Hubert M.G. Ouedraogo.Non-PRIFPRI2; Environment and Natural Resource Management; Agriculture and Rural Development; CAPRiEPT
Policies to promote cereal intensification in Ethiopia: A review of evidence and experience
No full text"Despite more than a decade of policies placing high priority on cereal intensification, backed by one of the highest rates of public expenditures on agricultural in Africa, Ethiopia has yet to see payoffs in terms of higher and more stable cereal yields, reduced dependency on food aid, improved food security, and lower consumer prices for staples. There is understandable concern about the performance, efficiency and sustainability of the agricultural sector, specifically in terms of the current systems for providing extension services, improved seed, fertilizer, and credit. This paper aims to illuminate possible solutions available to improving the prospects for cereal intensification in Ethiopia. The paper traces the largely state-led policies that have been put in place to stimulate increased cereal productivity and examines the extent to which these policies have had their intended impacts. This review indicates that although Ethiopia has an admirable and sustained record of supporting seed-fertilizer technological intensification in cereals, the related state-led policies have outlived their usefulness, suggesting the need for a rethinking of approaches." - from authors' abstract.; Dawit Alemu: DCA, EthiopiaNon-PRIFPRI1; Theme 9; Subtheme 9.1; GRP3; Country and regional food, nutrition, and agricultural strategies; DCADSG
General equilibrium measures of agricultural policy bias in fifteen developing countries
No full textIn this paper, we present a comparative analysis of the extent to which indirect taxes, tariffs, and exchange rates affected relative price incentives for agricultural production in a representative sample of 15 developing countries in the 1990s. Empirical studies from the 1980s, using partial equilibrium methodologies, supported the view that policies in many developing countries imparted a major incentive bias against agriculture. Eliminating this bias was one of the goals of policy reform strategies, including structural adjustment programs, supported by the World Bank and others; and many countries undertook such reforms in the 1990s. In our sample, general equilibrium analysis indicates that, in the 1990s, the economywide system of indirect taxes, including tariffs and export taxes, significantly discriminated against agriculture in only one country, was largely neutral in five, provided a moderate subsidy to agriculture in four, and strongly favored agriculture in five. Earlier work assumed that overvaluation of the exchange rate would hurt agriculture, which was assumed to be largely tradable. In a general equilibrium setting, changes in the exchange rate can as demonstrated in this paper lead to anything between strongly increasing and decreasing relative agriculture/non-agriculture incentives, depending on relative trade shares. We conclude that, whatever incentive bias there was in the 1980s, it has mostly disappeared by the 1990s. We also find that it is difficult to generalize-country specific circumstances greatly affect the relative impact of trade policies on agriculture and the rural economy. -- Authors' Abstract.Non-PRIFPRI1TM
the 2002 Farm Bill and WTO DOHA Round proposal
No full textThe 2002 U.S. farm bill has been widely criticized for increasing subsidies with detrimental effects on competing agricultural producers abroad and for undermining U.S. leadership in achieving liberalized world agricultural trade. This paper provides an assessment that shows the 2002 bill has effects that are nuanced in at least four respects. It raises expenditures compared to 1996 legislation, but not compared to actual 1998-2001 outlays. It maintains planting flexibility, but extends support to new crops and undermines some of the decoupling of subsidy payments from production and market prices that had occurred. It violates the spirit of U.S. trade liberalization rhetoric, but probably not the letter of U.S. WTO commitments. And it continues the policies of wealthy countries that collectively distort agricultural production and world prices, but only marginally worsen the net effects of these policies.Non-PRIFPRI1; Markets and TradeTM
Developing country interests in agricultural reforms under the World Trade Organization
No full textThe gains to developing countries from agricultural reform in developed countries is found to benefit most, even the net food importers, although the gains vary depending on a country’s trade pattern. This results because the agricultural policy of a small number of developed countries cause the major distortions in world markets, and developing countries whose major share of agricultural trade is with the E.U. are impacted quite differently than those trading with the U.S. Even though Japan and Korea maintain high trade barriers, these barriers are found to have small effects on developing countries. The long-run benefits of reform are found to greatly exceed the short-run gains.Non-PRIFPRI1; Markets and TradeTM