Publication: Rural Development from a Territorial Perspective : Lessons and Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa
Loading...
Files in English
304 downloads
Published
2008
ISSN
Date
2012-06-26
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) poverty reduction and economic growth strategies and programs concentrate on consolidating economic growth at the macro level, through increased investment and productivity of key sectors including agriculture and enhanced employment. Such strategies do not set out clear mechanisms whereby prosperity can be generated at the sub-national level, nor do they recognize the different contributions that agriculture has to make to reduction of poverty in diverse locations, settings and territories. The paper analyzes the lessons and potential poverty impacts involved in the application of territorial and local economic development (LED) approaches and makes preliminary assessments of the transferability of these approaches to SSA.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Quan, Julian; Davis, Junior; Proctor, Felicity. 2008. Rural Development from a Territorial Perspective : Lessons and Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9196 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Rural Development from a Territorial Perspective: Case Studies in Asia and Latin America(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-12)The contribution of agriculture and rural development to poverty reduction is studied by examining the transformation of five territories in four countries in Asia (Malaysia and People's Republic of China) and Latin America (Brazil and Peru) which have experienced substantial reductions in poverty. The study analyzed: 1) the transformation of the five territories, focusing mainly on identifying the dominant strategies that rural households implemented to exit out of poverty; 2i) the relative importance of different assets (human, physical, financial, natural, and social capital) in the successful adoption of exit roads from poverty; 3) analyzed the role of agriculture and other economic activities in rural poor households to exit from poverty; and 4) the role of government interventions.Publication Agriculture for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)Agriculture is growing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), but the growth is precarious. In most countries, it has yet to reach the sustained 6% annual rate estimated by NEPAD as necessary to meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015. Growth needs to be accelerated, secured and used more effectively to promote broadly shared development. This requires two elements. The first is a reversal in the massive underinvestment and significant mis-investment that has taken place in the past in African agriculture, which has led to a huge cost in forgone development for Africans. The second element is to capture part of this productivity growth to help finance a set of investments, programs and policies that in the short to medium term will secure the assets and access to services of those smallholders facing severe resource and productivity constraints, while over the longer term provide them or their children with a path out of low-productivity farming.Publication Rural Territorial Development : The Milk Territory in Southern Chile(World Bank, 2008)The milk territory in Southern Chile is studied to examine the evolution of the dairy industry, which was expected to fail when Chile became an associated member of the MERCOSUR regional agreement, and to understand the evolution of the milk territory associated with the dairy industry. The major and most important conclusion of this analysis is that the Chilean dairy industry did not collapse as expected. On the contrary, it has been strengthened by accessing external specialized markets in countries outside the MERCOSUR region. This case is an example of an industry that takes advantage of an open economy and a regional trade agreement to grow, improve competitiveness and impact the territory in which it is settled.Publication Learning from the Chinese Miracle : Development Lessons for Sub-Saharan Africa(2010-02-01)A notable contrast in modern economic history has been the rapid economic growth of China and the slower and volatile economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the engagement between the two continues to grows, there will be a greater cross-fertilization of experiences. Total factor productivity comparisons suggest that capital accumulation in China coupled with more efficient factor usage explains the differential with Africa. Although the two have similar populations and patterns of inequality, their growth trajectories have been divergent. What can Africa learn from China? Although the lessons vary depending on country location and resource endowment, seven basic lessons are visible. First, the political economy of Chinese reforms and the shared gains between political elites and the private sector can be partially transplanted to the African context. Second, the Chinese used diaspora capital and knowledge in the early reform years. Third, rural reforms in China helped accelerate economic takeoff through a restructuring of property rights and a boost to both savings rates and output. Fourth, Chinese growth has taken place in the context of a competitive exchange rate. Five, port governance in China has been exemplary, and African landlocked economies can benefit significantly from port reform in the coastal countries. Six, China has experimented with a degree of decentralization that could yield benefits for many Sub-Saharan African countries. Seventh, Africa can learn from China s policies toward autonomous areas and ethnic minorities to stave off conflict. Africa can learn from China s experiences and conduct developmental experiments for poverty alleviation goals.Publication The Role of Rural Labor Markets in Poverty Reduction : Evidence from Asia and East Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008)By using long-term panel data sets of rural households in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India and cross-sectional data sets in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, the roles of labor markets in long-term poverty reduction in Asia is compared with the current situation in East Africa. The study finds that the reliance on agricultural labor markets alone will not reduce poverty to a significant extent, in view of the declining share of agricultural wage income in Asia and its negligibly low level in East Africa. An increased non-farm income is a decisive factor in reducing rural poverty, as it has reduced the income gaps between the land-rich and land-poor households, between the educated and uneducated workers, and between less and more favorable agricultural areas. Labor markets are clearly segmented in accordance with the schooling levels, which critically affect occupational choice and non-farm income of rural labor force.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Promise and Limitations of Information Technology for Tax Mobilization(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-11)Tax revenue in many low- and middle-income countries is inadequate for funding investments in public goods and human capital. With high levels of informality and limited state capacity, many tax authorities have difficulty determining the true tax base and collecting taxes efficiently and equitably. Tax authorities are increasingly adopting new technologies to improve administrative processes, reduce taxpayer compliance costs, and enhance their overall effectiveness. This paper reviews the recent literature on the use of technology for tax administration. It highlights the potential of technology to improve tax collection by helping to identify the tax base, monitor compliance and facilitate compliance. It also identifies possible limitations to the use of technology arising from inadequate infrastructure and connectivity, lack of adoption or resistance by taxpayers and tax collectors, lack of institutional mainstreaming, and an unsupportive regulatory environment.Publication Antidumping, Retaliation Threats, and Export Prices(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2013-01)Utilizing four-dimensional (firm-product-destination-year) Brazilian firm-level export data, we show that antidumping (AD) duties result in a significant and dramatic increase in the unit values of the products that firms export to duty-imposing countries. Furthermore, we examine the effect of potential (retaliatory) AD duties on the unit price of the firms' shipments. Our findings suggest that AD activities in Brazil lead Brazilian exporting firms to increase their unit export prices for the named industries' products to decrease the dumping margin and avoid the threat of retaliation by the target countries.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Toward Country-led Development : A Multi-Partner Evaluation of the Comprehensive Development Framework--Synthesis Report(Washington, DC, 2003)This evaluation report synthesizes the findings of a multi-partner effort to assess implementation of the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF). The evaluation's primary objectives are to: Identify the factors that have facilitated implementation of CDF principles, and those that have hindered it. Assess the extent to which CDF implementation has affected intermediate outcomes and, to the extent possible, longer-term development outcomes. In the mid-1990s, the aid community began a candid self-assessment. Disappointing development results-especially in Sub-Saharan Africa-had raised troubling questions: Does the emphasis on structural adjustment ignore the poor? Do the many agencies and international organizations working in developing countries overburden, rather than strengthen, the capacity of recipient governments? Does the poor coordination of donors add to the challenge of making development effective? Increasingly, the painful realization of development agencies, recipient countries, and aid analysts was "yes"-the full potential of international aid to reduce poverty by achieving positive, sustainable development results was not being fulfilled.Publication Mobilizing Civil Society to Fight Corruption in Bangladesh(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1999-10)A successful anti-corruption strategy must have a free press to voice public opinion and report cases of corruption, an effective and politically neutral mechanism to investigate and prosecute corruption, and a reliable judicial process to punish wrongdoing when it is proved. It is rare to find all these elements in a developing country. without considerable public pressure, governments are unlikely to foster the transparency and accountability needed to curb malfeasance by public officials. Consequently there is a major role for civil society organizations to campaign for such reforms. This is the mission of the national chapters of Transparency International. This Note discusses the crucial role played by the Bangladesh chapter of Transparency International in pressing for the implementation of corruption reform, publicizing well-researched facts about corruption, and lobbying for additional measures.