1,185 research outputs found
Planning dam operation and irrigation development on the Blue Nile in Sudan
No full textMohammed Basheer, Khalid Siddig, and Claudia Ringler 2nd Pakistan Water Week October 24-28, 202
The impact of banning export of cereals in response to soaring food prices: Evidences from Ethiopia using the new GTAP African database
Full text linkIn the poorest countries like Ethiopia the spillover effects of a soaring food price is unbearable. To mitigate the recent rise in food prices and the burden on urban poor consumers, different measures have been considered by policy makers. Recently, Ethiopia banned the export of all grain products in a bid to stem huge price hikes. The export of indigenous grains, including the staple grains, like teff, maize, sorghum, and wheat are suspended indefinitely. Using the standard GTAP model and the recent GTAP Africa database, this paper simulates the overall implication of banning export of grains. Regarding the impact on prices, the simulation result tells us that prices are likely to fall. At macro level, the result reveals trade balance will not be decline following such actions. However, it has been shown that in terms of overall welfare the policy has a devastating impact as the country will likely to lose welfare equivalent of $ 148 million.Food price inflation;- export ban;- WTO:- Ethiopia;- GTAP
Measuring and accounting for community capabilities in Kordofan, Sudan:
Full text link"Parallel to the growing attention being devoted to the relationship between empowerment and development, an increasing number of tools are being developed to measure empowerment and determine the link between these two phenomena. This paper details the methodological processes used to construct, test and possibly refine one such instrument, the Community Capability Index, an innovative tool to measure community capabilities in the domain of natural resource governance. Empirical reference is made to research conducted in 85 villages in North and South Kordofan, Sudan. Following this, the paper presents findings from analyses of the determinants of community capabilities, including geographic, economic, and institutional variables. The results suggest that in Kordofan a number of factors influence capabilities. Possessing a village market, proximity to the nearest town, and access to credit are economic variables that have a significant and highly positive effect on community capabilities. Regarding the environment, capabilities are found to be greater where there is more rainfall, but access to groundwater from lower-quality aquifers and cracking clay soils have negative impacts on capabilities. War shocks, as might be expected, have a negative and significant effect. Particularly interesting is the generally weak correlation found between capabilities and wealth, along with strong correlations between institutional and social dimensions of community capabilities and participation in donor-funded projects. This combination suggests that development interventions must take into account the non-identity of poverty reduction and empowerment processes, at least when the targeted agents are communities rather than individuals or households. The findings reveal areas for further investigation into the relationship between the determinants and dimensions of capabilities, and the potential significance of the relationship for some dimensions suggests context-specific interventions to strengthen the relevant capabilities." from Authors' AbstractCapabilities, Community Capabilities Index, Empowerment, methodologies, Social capital,
Dr. Khalid Lodhi - Bed Bugs Undercover Agents in Forensic Investigations - September 10 2025
No full textDr. Khalid Lodhi speaks at the Chesnutt Library of Fayetteville State University about his recent research into using bedbugs as a tool in forensic research and criminal justice.
Presented live on September 10, 2025 as part of Chesnutt Library\u27s Faculty Author Series.https://digitalcommons.uncfsu.edu/faculty_author/1016/thumbnail.jp
2012 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Sudan
No full textThe 2012 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the Sudan, with a special focus on agriculture, water, and energy, is built using data from domestic sources in the Sudan, including the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and the Central Bank of Sudan, besides other external sources. Major data sets used include the 2012 National Accounts and Trade Statistics of the CBS, the 53rd Annual Report of the Central Bank of the Sudan, the 2011 Labor Force Survey, the 2009 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the 2009-2012 Agricultural Production Cost Survey, and the 2005 Industrial Survey. Data from external sources are used to complement national sources. These sources include IMF studies on government finances, FAO reports and data on agriculture, and ILO reports on labor. The SAM distinguishes between agricultural activities based on modes of irrigation, energy based on its major source, and water based on modes of production and types of uses. Land is divided into irrigated and non-irrigated, while natural water resources are added in a separate account. Households are categorized by state, location (rural and urban), and income quintiles. Labor accounts are differentiated based on location (rural and urban), skill level, and gender.IFPRI1; Open Access; CRP2DSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Agricultural Efficiency Gains and Trade Liberalization in Sudan
Full text linkThe traditional agriculture in Sudan occupies 60% of the total cultivated land and employs 65% of the agricultural population. Nevertheless, it is characterized by its low crop productivity, which is mainly driven by low technical efficiency, while drought and civil conflicts threaten most of its areas countrywide. Therefore, it has contributed only an average of 16% to the total agricultural GDP during the last decade. This paper addresses from an empirical point of view the sectoral and macroeconomic implications of agricultural efficiency improvement in Sudan and assesses the efficiency gains under the assumption of trade liberalization. Efficiency improvement experiments are implemented by augmenting the efficiency parameters of labor, capital, and land in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework. The CGE model of the study relies on the newly produced Sudanese Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), which provides data on 10 agricultural sectors, 10 industrial sectors and 13 service sectors. Results show that improving the agricultural efficiency would lead to improvements in GDP, welfare level, and trade balance. In addition it would also improve the output and competitiveness of the Sudanese agricultural exports and increase their strength to face the challenges of liberalization.Agricultural efficiency, liberalization, Sudan SAM, CGE analysis, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Consumer/Household Economics, Crop Production/Industries, Food Security and Poverty, Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, D2, D5, D6, E1, E2, F1, F2, H2,
Impact of soil conservation on crop production in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands:
Full text link"Land degradation, in the form of soil erosion and nutrient depletion, threatens food security and the sustainability of agricultural production in many developing countries. Governments and development agencies have invested substantial resources in promoting soil conservation practices, in an effort to improve environmental conditions and reduce poverty. However, very limited rigorous empirical work has examined the economics of adopting soil conservation technology. This paper investigates the impact of stone bunds on crop production value per hectare in low and high rainfall areas of the Ethiopian highlands using cross-sectional data from more than 900 households having multiple plots per household. We use modified random effects models, stochastic dominance analysis (SDA) and matching methods to ensure robustness. The parametric regression and SDA estimates are based on matched observations obtained from nearest neighbor matching using propensity score estimates. This is important because conventional regression and SDA estimates are obtained without ensuring the existence of comparable conserved and non-conserved plots within the distribution of covariates. Here, we use matching methods, random effects and Mundlak's approach to control for selection and endogeneity biases that may arise due to correlation of unobserved heterogeneity and observed explanatory variables. The three methods used herein consistently show that plots with stone bunds are more productive than those without such technologies in semi-arid areas but not in higher rainfall areas, apparently because the moisture-conserving benefits of this technology are more beneficial in drier areas. This implies that the performance of stone bunds varies by agro-ecological type, suggesting a need for the design and implementation of appropriate site-specific technologies." from Authors' AbstractSoil conservation, Crop production, Agro-ecology, Matching method, Stochastic dominance, Modified random effects model, Land management,
Diversification in Indian agriculture towards high-value crops: The role of smallholders
Full text link"Agricultural diversification towards high-value crops can potentially increase farm incomes, especially in a country like India where demand for high-value food products has been increasing more quickly than that for staple crops. Indian agriculture is overwhelmingly dominated by smallholders, and researchers have long debated the ability of a smallholder-dominated subsistence farm economy to diversify into riskier high-value crops. Here, we present evidence that the gradual diversification of Indian agriculture towards high-value crops exhibits a pro-smallholder bias, with smallholders playing a proportionally larger role in the cultivation of vegetables versus fruits. The observed patterns are consistent with simple comparative advantage-based production choices. The comparatively high labor endowments of the small farmers, as reflected in their greater family sizes, induce them to diversify towards vegetables. Although fruit cultivation is also labor intensive (as compared to cultivation of staples), fruits are relatively capital intensive, making them a less advantageous choice for smallholders who tend to have low capital endowments. Furthermore, both the probability of participation in fruit and vegetable cultivation as well as land allocation to horticulture decreases with the size of landholdings in India. Small or medium holders do not appear to allocate a greater share of land to fruits or vegetables. However, the share allocated to vegetables is significantly higher if the family size is bigger, while the reverse is true in the case of fruits." from Authors' Abstractdiversification, Smallholders, small farms, High value agriculture,
Urbanization, educational expansion, and expenditures inequality in Indonesia in 1996, 1999, and 2002:
Full text link"This paper considers urban-rural location and education as the main causes of expenditure inequality and attempts to examine inequality changes associated with urbanization and educational expansion in Indonesia from 1996 to 2002, using Indonesian monthly household consumption expenditure data. It introduces a hierarchical framework of inequality decomposition by population subgroups, which enables researchers to analyze inequality resulting from differences in educational attainment as well as inequality within each educational group, after the effects on inequality of urban–rural differences in the composition of educational attainments are removed. It finds that the urban sector's higher educational group contributes significantly to overall inequality. Inequality within the group increased significantly once Indonesia recovered from the financial crisis of 1998. This, together with educational expansion in urban areas, led to a conspicuous rise in urban inequality. Overall expenditure inequality has increased markedly, due not only to the rise in urban inequality but also a widening urban-rural disparity, accompanied by a population shift from the rural to the urban sector. Since more people will obtain higher education as the economy continues to develop, and more jobs requiring specialized skills become available in urban areas, urban inequality is likely to remain high. In order to mitigate urban inequality and thus overall inequality, the government needs to introduce policies that could reduce inequality among households whose heads have a tertiary education." from Authors' AbstractExpenditure inequality, Urbanization, Educational expansion, Theil index, Two-stage nested inequality decomposition analysis, Public investment,
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