Agricultural and Rural Development Notes

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than 1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050, is a diverse ...

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Gender and Governance in Agricultural Extension Services : Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-03) Madhvani, Sonia ; Pehu, Eija

The gender and governance in rural services insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia report aims to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies for improving agricultural service delivery, with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project has been implemented in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia. These countries were chosen to capture variation in important macro-factors, especially the level of economic development; various aspects of governance, such as political system and party system; the role of women in society; and strategies adopted to promote gender equity. The project focused on agricultural extension as an example of a critical agricultural service. In India, the main problem is the lack of overall capacity resulting from a past policy of not hiring agricultural extension providers. The study indicates that access to agricultural extension is low in Ghana, despite the fact that an extension agent-to-farmer ratio is comparatively high. Agricultural extension is a high for the Ethiopia government priority, but coverage of extension services across regions varies widely, and extension agents have limited discretion to adapt technology packages to the context of individual communities. The gender gap in access to extension can also be improved.
Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant : Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06) Morris, Michael ; Larson, Gunnar

Stimulating agricultural growth is critical to reducing poverty in Africa. Commercial agriculture, potentially a powerful driver of agricultural growth, can develop along a number of pathways. Yet many developing regions have failed to progress very far along any of these pathways. Particularly in Africa, agriculture continues to lag. During the past 30 years the competitiveness of many African export crops has declined, and Africa's dependence on imported food crops has increased. While the poor performance of African agriculture can be attributed partly to adverse agroecological conditions, experience from elsewhere in the developing world suggests that significant progress is possible. The Guinea Savannah covers some 600 million hectares in Africa, of which about 400 million can be used for agriculture. Less than ten percent of this area is currently cropped, making it one of the largest underused agricultural land reserves in the world.
Managing Drought Risk for Food Security in Africa : An Innovative Solution in Malawi

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01) Syroka, Joanna ; Bunte, Kara

Malawi periodically experiences drought leading to shortages of grain on the domestic market and a sharp increase in consumer prices. Consumers, including many of the poorest farmers in the country, experience difficulty obtaining enough grain to meet their family requirements. One method to reduce the risks of grain shortfalls is to improve the capacity of farmers to produce enough grain even when drought occurs, for example, through input subsidies and efforts to improve water use efficiency. An additional measure is to finance the establishment and distribution of strategic grain stocks. However, in the occasional year when drought is most extreme, supplementary assistance will still be needed in the form of expensive food imports and, possibly, food aid.
Land Reform in Mozambique

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12) Van den Brink, Rogier J. E.

This brief includes the following headings: rationale, objectives, and basic features of the 1997 land law; acquiring land-use rights; obstacles to transferring urban land-use rights; promote the productive use of Direito de Uso e Aproveitamento dos Terras, or DUATs; and enforce the land tax.
Addressing Unequal Economic Opportunities : A Case Study of Land Tenure in Ghana

(Washington, DC, 2006-09) World Bank

The author examine this relationship in the context of agriculture in Ghana's Eastern Region. Our work traces the connection from a set of complex and explicitly negotiable property rights over land to agricultural investment and, in turn, to agricultural productivity. Using survey and focus group data, we find that while the land tenure institutions may have some benefits, they result in drastically lower productivity for those not connected to the political hierarchy. This paper discusses the following topics: land transactions and land rights, land tenure is a political process, and a safety net of sorts.