03. Journals

2,963 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Koranic Schools in Niger: How Much Can Be Learned from Existing Data?

(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-28) Male, Chata ; Nayihouba, Ada ; Wodon, Quentin

The term Koranic school is often used to describe schools that are not part of the formal education system and typically place a strong emphasis on memorizing the Koran in Arabic, as well as on knowledge of Islamic religious education and practice. Using data from Niger as a case study, this paper provides data on trends in the share of individuals that have a Koranic education, a formal education, or no education at all, as well as a basic profile (univariate and multivariate) of children with Koranic education, formal education, or no education at all. In addition, the potential impacts of Koranic education in comparison to formal education or no education at all on outcomes such as literacy and numeracy, labor market earnings, household consumption, assets and perceptions of well-being, and infant mortality is analyzed.
How to Target Households in Adaptive Social Protection Systems? Evidence from Humanitarian and Development Approaches in Niger

(Taylor and Francis, 2019-12-06) Schnitzer, Pascale

The methods used to identify the beneficiaries of programs aiming to address persistent poverty and shocks are subject to frequent policy debates. Relying on panel data from Niger, this report simulates the performance of various targeting methods that are widely used by development and humanitarian actors. The methods include proxy-means testing (PMT), household economy analysis (HEA), geographical targeting, and combined methods. Results show that PMT performs more effectively in identifying persistently poor households, while HEA shows superior performance in identifying transiently food insecure households. Geographical targeting is particularly efficient in responding to food crises, which tend to be largely covariate. Combinations of geographical, PMT, and HEA approaches may be used as part of an efficient and scalable adaptive social protection system. Results motivate the consolidation of data across programs, which can support the application of alternative targeting methods tailored to program-specific objectives.
Education Budget Savings from Ending Child Marriage and Early Childbirths: The Case of Niger

(Taylor and Francis, 2018) Wodon, Quentin

Ending child marriage and early childbirths would reduce total fertility rates and population growth especially in countries with a high incidence of child marriage, early childbirths, or both. Savings for public budgets could be large. This article relies on demographic projections and a UNESCO costing model for the provision of education by governments to estimate savings that could result from ending child marriage and early childbirths for public education budgets. The analysis is conducted for Niger, the country with the highest rate of child marriage in the world.
Willing but Unable? Short-term Experimental Evidence on Parent Empowerment and School Quality

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2017-06-01) Beasley, Elizabeth ; Huillery, Elise

Giving power over school management and spending decisions to communities has been a favored strategy to increase school quality, but its effectiveness may depend on local capacity. Grants are one form of such a transfer of power. Short-term responses of a grant to school committees in Niger show that parents increased participation and responsibility, but these efforts did not improve quality on average. Enrollment at the lowest grades increased and school resources improved, but teacher absenteeism increased, and there was no measured impact on test scores. An analysis of heterogeneous impacts and spending decisions provides additional insight into these dynamics. Overall, the findings suggest that programs based on parent participation should take levels of community capacity into account: even when communities are willing to work to improve their schools, they may not be able to do so. The short-term nature of the experiment reduces the extent to which the results can be generalized.
Smallholders’ Land Access in Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Landscape?

(Elsevier, 2017-02) Deininger, Klaus ; Savastano, Sara ; Xia, Fang

While scholars long recognized the importance of land markets as a key driver of rural non-farm development and transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent of their operation and the nature of participants remains limited. We use household data from 6 countries to show that there is great potential for such markets to increase productivity and equalize factor ratios. While rental markets transfer land to land-poor and labor-rich producers, their operation and thus impact may be constrained by policy restrictions. Their functioning may also be constrained by ill-defined or insecure rights that may arise from failure to fully compensate existing rights in cases of expropriation, a failure to implement more broadly land policies or to do so in a gender sensitive manner. Methodological and substantive conclusions are derived.
How Much of the Labor in African Agriculture Is Provided by Women?

(Elsevier, 2017-02) Palacios-Lopez, Amparo ; Christiaensen, Luc ; Kilic, Talip

The contribution of women to labor in African agriculture is regularly quoted in the range of 60–80%. Using individual, plot-level labor input data from nationally representative household surveys across six Sub-Saharan African countries, this study estimates the average female labor share in crop production at 40%. It is slightly above 50% in Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, and substantially lower in Nigeria (37%), Ethiopia (29%), and Niger (24%). There are no systematic differences across crops and activities, but female labor shares tend to be higher in households where women own a larger share of the land and when they are more educated. Controlling for the gender and knowledge profile of the respondents does not meaningfully change the predicted female labor shares. The findings question prevailing assertions regarding substantial gains in aggregate crop output as a result of increasing female agricultural productivity.
Food Price Seasonality in Africa: Measurement and Extent

(Elsevier, 2017-02) Gilbert, Christopher L. ; Christiaensen, Luc ; Kaminski, Jonathan

Everyone knows about seasonality. But what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias. This can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and sawtooth models, which are more parsimonious. Among staple crops, seasonality is highest for maize (33 percent on average) and lowest for rice (16½ percent). This is two and a half to three times larger than in the international reference markets. Seasonality varies substantially across market places but maize is the only crop in which there are important systematic country effects. Malawi, where maize is the main staple, emerges as exhibiting the most acute seasonal differences. Reaching the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger requires renewed policy attention to seasonality in food prices and consumption.
Agricultural Intensification: The Status in Six African Countries

(Elsevier, 2017-02) Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans P. ; Savastano, Sara

Boserup and Ruthenberg (BR) provided the framework to analyze the impact of population growth and market access on the intensification of farming systems. Prior evidence in Africa is consistent with the framework. Over the past two decades, rapid population growth has put farming systems under stress, while rapid urbanization and economic growth have provided new market opportunities. New measures of agro-ecological potential and urban gravity are developed to analyze their impact on population density and market access. The descriptive and regression analyses show that the patterns of intensification across countries are only partially consistent with the BR predictions. Fallow areas have disappeared, but cropping intensities remain very low. The use of organic and chemical fertilizers is too low to maintain soil fertility. Investments in irrigation are inadequate. In light of the promising outcomes suggested by the Boserup-Ruthenberg framework, the process of intensification across these countries appears to have been weak.
Early Childhood Development in the Context of the Family: The Case of Child Marriage

(Taylor and Francis, 2016-11-03) Wodon, Quentin

Early childhood is a critical period in a child’s development. Poor conditions early in life affect not only children’s physical growth, but also their brain development and capabilities, with lasting consequences in adulthood. A child’s family is the first and most important support system to ensure healthy growth and development. This also means that when the family and especially the mother is vulnerable, this can have lasting negative consequences for young children. This article illustrates the impact that family conditions can have on early childhood development by considering the specific case of child marriage, defined as a girl marrying before the age of 18, as well as early childbirth, defined as a girl having a child before the age of 18, itself in most cases a consequence of child marriage. The article also discusses interventions that could help in reducing both the likelihood of child marriage and its intergenerational impacts on young children.