Agricultural Growth and Investment Options for Poverty Reduction in Zambia PDF Download

Author: James Thurlow, Samuel Benin, Xinshen Diao, Henrietta Kalinda, and Thomson Kalinda
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Author: James Thurlow
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 55

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Author: Renkow, Mitch
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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This report assesses the impact of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) Global Research Program on Priorities for Public Investment in Agriculture and Rural Areas (“GRP-3”). Initiated in 1998, the stated objectives of the research program were (1) to increase public investment for rural areas and the agricultural sector given that there is an underspending in the sector and (2) to better target and improve efficiency of public resources to achieve these growth and poverty reduction goals, as well as other development goals. GRP-3 evolved out of research on the impacts of alternative types of public spending on income and poverty outcomes in India and China that was conducted by staff of IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division (later the Development Strategy and Governance Division). Those studies indicated that public investments in infrastructure—in particular, investments in roads, agricultural research and development (R&D), and education—yielded sizeable marginal benefits in terms of poverty alleviation and income generation in rural areas. This line of research was later expanded to encompass a number of countries in Africa and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. A second major (and ongoing) thrust of the program is to support African governments in establishing public investment priorities and strategies for promoting rural economic growth and poverty alleviation. Major activities undertaken include providing analytical and institutional support to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and evaluations of individual publicly-funded programs in several African countries. GRP-3 has generated an impressive array of published outputs. The great bulk of these emerged from the research conducted in India and China. A much smaller number of published outputs have been generated by the (more recently conducted) research in Africa; however, a substantial number of papers, book manuscripts, and monographs are in various stages of the publication process. Other important program outputs include a variety of public expenditure databases suitable for assessing the nature and effects of individual countries’ spending priorities. GRP-3 research has had substantial influence on public expenditure priorities in India and China. Most notably, published research in India played a key role in the institution of the Rural Roads Program that directed huge sums toward construction of roads connecting large numbers of previously unserved villages. Quantitative assessment of the positive impacts from these road investments indicates that IFPRI research can reasonably take substantial credit for lifting tens of thousands of individuals out of poverty and increasing agricultural GDP by billions of rupees. Additionally, in both China and India, GRP-3 research has influenced recent policy conversations that have led to increased spending on agricultural R&D and education. Overall, the program has substantially met its stated objectives in Asia. GRP-3 research in Africa has yet to fully meet the program’s objectives, in large part because the policymaking process in the countries where IFPRI has been active are still not far enough advanced for the research outputs to have translated into actual policies. Still, some important outcomes have emerged: The work IFPRI has conducted in support of CAADP has successfully shepherded 19 countries through the Compact process. However, the Compacts are intermediate products; it remains to be seen the extent to which governments follow through on the plans contained within them. IFPRI’s compilations of disparate public expenditure data in a large number of countries represent a useful local public good for use by research and practitioner communities outside of IFPRI. In addition, IFPRI’s role in guiding the formation and operation of a regional strategic assessment and knowledge support system (ReSAKSS) has boosted, if not created, institutional capacity for future monitoring and evaluation activities. Research on the impact of public investments in the agricultural sector has been useful to the donor community by providing empirical backstopping for ongoing policy dialogues with governments. However, the difficult—and often contentious—political environment in which those dialogues occur has meant that policy outcomes are still materializing (and far from certain).

Author: Samuel Benin, James Thurlow, Xinshen Diao, Christen McCool, and Franklin Simtowe
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Agriculture employs three-quarters of the population of Malawi. It makes up more than forty percent of the economy and sixty percent of all exports. Yet productivity in agriculture--measured as the amount of output for a given amount of inputs--is considerably lower than it could be, given Malawi's agricultural resources. Efforts to expand the economy and reduce poverty must involve agriculture. Where should the Government of Malawi invest?

Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264112901
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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This volume sets out a strategy for raising rural incomes which emphasises the creation of diversified rural economies with opportunities within and outside agriculture.

Author: Samuel Benin, James Thurlow, Xinshen Diao, Allen Kebba, and Nelson Ofwono
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Author: John A. Dixon
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 9789251046272
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.

Author: Xinshen Diao
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896291766
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Although Rwanda has made considerable progress in recovering politically and economically from the devastating effects of the 1994 genocide, the poverty rate is still higher and the gross domestic product lower than before the genocide. Poverty reduction and economic growth would receive much-needed support from increased agricultural growth. This study assesses alternative agricultural development strategies, identifying areas in which policy reforms, together with public and private investment, can best promote Rwandan agriculture. The authors evaluate the potential of several different agricultural subsectors-grains, root crops, livestock, and others-to contribute to national agricultural growth and poverty reduction. They conclude that growth in staple crops, particularly root crops such as cassava and potatoes, has the greatest potential to encourage economywide growth and poverty reduction. Promoting the necessary staple crop growth will require the allocation of public resources to the agricultural sector to increase significantly, reaching 10 percent of the total government budget. It will also require rethinking Rwanda's earlier emphasis on promoting export crop growth, which has proved inadequate in encouraging poverty reduction while also posing environmental problems. This study makes an important contribution to the debate over the most effective development strategies for Rwanda and other Sub-Saharan African nations.Show More Show Less

Author: Ann Harrison
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226318001
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 674

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Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

Author: Jatinder S. Bedi and Caesar B. Cororaton
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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