Publication: Agricultural Sector Risk Assessment in Niger : Moving from Crisis Response to Long-Term Risk Management
Loading...
Published
2013
ISSN
Date
2013-04-23
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Niger, owing to its climatic, institutional, livelihood, economic, and environmental context, is one of the most vulnerable countries of the world. Poverty is pervasive in Niger and it ranks low on almost all the human development indicators. Agriculture is the most important sector of Niger's economy and accounts for over 40 percent of national gross domestic product (GDP) and is the principle source of livelihood for over 80 percent of the country's population. The performance of the agricultural sector, however, due to its high exposure to risks, is very volatile. Niger has experienced multiple shocks, largely induced by agricultural risks over the past 30 years, which impose high welfare cost in terms of food availability, food affordability, and malnutrition. It also adversely affects household incomes, performance of the agricultural sector, the government's fiscal balance, and the growth rate of Niger's economy. Niger is a case of living perpetually with risk, thus more emphasis on long-term structural solutions, rather than short-term quick fixes, is required to improve the resilience of the agricultural sector. Designing and implementing a comprehensive agricultural risk management strategy will require sustained and substantial financial investments, shifting the focus from short-term crisis response to long-term risk management, streamlining disparate donor investments and isolated interventions toward the core problem, supporting decentralized community, and farm-level decision making, integrating agricultural risk management into the existing development frameworks, prioritizing agricultural risks into government and donor strategies, and focusing on implementation.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2013. Agricultural Sector Risk Assessment in Niger : Moving from Crisis Response to Long-Term Risk Management. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13260 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 Identifying Investment Opportunities for Ruminant Livestock Feeding in Developing Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11)In the future scenario for livestock development, there is a continuing role for smallholder producers, particular for dairy and small ruminants, relying heavily on grass and crop-residues, however in a growth mode, intensifying production, and enhancing the efficiency of resource use (less land, labor and feed resources per unit product). In particular improving the efficiency of converting feed into milk and meat will be critical to increase their income. Ensuring that happens will require technical solutions, in ensuring that feed rations are adequately balanced with the appropriate feedstuffs of adequate quality, and institutional solutions on how to provide smallholders access to high quality information and reliable supplies of sufficient quality feeds. Investment strategies will need to be purposefully tailored to fit these specific contexts. This study assesses where the demand for feed is likely to change the most, and where investments in feed are most likely to increase animal productivity and improve the livelihoods of those who raise livestock. The study focuses on smallholder ruminant-based livestock systems because they have potentially major transformative effects on the livelihoods of producers and others engaged in the related value chains. While pig and poultry enterprises typically play an important role in livelihoods at very low input levels, such as backyard scavenging poultry, they tend to be replaced very quickly by larger scale commercial units. In India for instance, broiler production moved from a few hundred birds per unit to units with a weekly turnover of ten to twenty thousand between 2001 and 2006.Publication Potential Impact of Climate Change on Resilience and Livelihoods in Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems in East Africa(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-02-01)Climate-induced livelihood transitions in the agricultural systems of Africa are increasingly likely. A recent study by Jones and Thornton (2009) points to the possibility of such climate-induced livelihood transitions in the mixed crop-livestock rainfed arid-semiarid systems of Africa. These mixed systems cover over one million square kilometers of farmland in West Africa, Eastern Africa, and Southeastern Africa. Their characteristically scant rainfall usually causes crop failure in one out of every six growing seasons and is thus already marginal for crop production. Under many projected climate futures, these systems will become drier and even more marginal for crop production. This will greatly increase the risk of cropping and among the several possible coping and adaptation mechanisms, (e.g. totally abandoning farming, diversification of income-generating activities such as migration and off-farm employment, etc.) agro-pastoralists may alter the relative emphasis that they currently place on the crop and livestock components of the farming system in favor of livestock. There has been only limited analysis on what such climate induced transitions might look like, but it is clear that the implications could be profound in relation to social, environmental, economic and political effects at local and national levels. This study sought to identify areas in the mixed crop-livestock systems in arid and semi-arid Africa where climate change could compel currently sedentary farmers to abandon cropping and to turn to nomadic pastoralism as a livelihood strategy, using East Africa as a case study. While the current study found no direct evidence for the hypothesized extensification across semiarid areas in East Africa, it is clear that systems are in transition with associated changes not necessarily climate driven but linked to broader socio-economic trends. Not surprisingly, many of the households in the piloted sites face a wide array of problems including poverty, food insecurity and inadequate diets which will be aggravated by the looming risks posed by climate change.Publication Kenya(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11)Despite myriad challenges, Kenya has emerged in recent years as one of Africa’s frontier economies, with headline growth in the most recent decade propelling the country toward middle-income status. Less well understood is how risk dynamics associated with production, markets, and policy adversely impact sector performance, in terms of both influencing ex ante decision making among farmers, traders, and other sector stakeholders and causing ex post losses to crops, livestock, and incomes - destabilizing livelihoods and jeopardizing the country’s food security. The present study was commissioned in part to bridge this knowledge gap. It is the first step in a multiphase process designed to integrate a stronger risk focus into sector planning and development programs. It seeks to learn from and build on a range of broad initiatives by the Government of Kenya (GoK) and its development partners purposed to enhance Kenya’s resilience and response to natural disasters. The ultimate objective is implementation of a holistic and systematic risk management system that will reduce the vulnerability and strengthen the resiliency of Kenya’s agricultural supply chains, and the livelihoods that depend on them. This sector risk assessment is the primary output of phase one. The study’s main objective is to identify, assess, and prioritize principal risks facing Kenya’s agriculture sector by analyzing their impacts via quantitative and qualitative measures. The study’s main findings highlight an agriculture sector increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather variability. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two provides an overview of Kenya’s agriculture sector and a discussion of key growth constraints. Chapter three assesses the main agricultural risks (production, market, and enabling environment). Chapter four analyzes the frequency and severity of the major risks identified and assesses their impact. Chapter five presents some stakeholder perceptions of these risks and the potential to improve their management. Chapter six concludes with an assessment of priorities for risk management and a broad discussion of possible risk management measures that can help to strengthen the resiliency of agricultural supply chains and the livelihoods they support.Publication Botswana Agriculture Public Expenditure Review 2000-2013(Washington, DC, 2015-03)This Botswana Agriculture Public Expenditure Review (AgPER) is one of a series of similar studies undertaken in over a dozen countries in sub-Saharan Africa under the framework of a program coordinated by CAADP, supported by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund, and implemented by the World Bank. The AgPER presents data about actual expenditure for the period 2000 to 2013, with an outlook on the following two years. It presents public expenditure on agriculture structured by various dimensions and classifiers such as institutional, recurrent versus investment and capital, by sub-function and subsector and by spending unit. It analyzes expenditure levels, patterns and trends and compares expenditure patterns with policy objectives and strategies. Finally, it draws conclusions and recommendations in areas where future decisions could benefit from a clear view of an analysis of past spending or where it is deemed useful to support imminent policy formulation and decisions with a clearer understanding of the financial implications.Publication Senegal(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-08)The performance of Senegal’s agricultural performance exemplifies the impact of unmanaged risk on productivity among vulnerable smallholder crop producers and pastoralists. The government of Senegal has historically responded to drought and other shocks with direct financial support to farmers as well as general assistance to the rural population. The World Bank, with support from the group of eight (G-8) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Equipment (MARE), commissioned the present study. The objective of this assessment was to assist the government of Senegal to: (1) identify, analyze, quantify, and prioritize principal risks facing the agricultural sector; (2) analyze the impact of these risks; and (3) identify and prioritize appropriate risk management interventions that may contribute to improved stability, reduced vulnerability, and increased resilience of agricultural supply chains in Senegal. This report presents a summary of the assessment’s key findings. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two provides an overview of the agricultural sector in Senegal and a discussion of key growth constraints. An assessment of the main agricultural risks is presented in chapter three. Chapter four analyzes the frequency and severity of highlighted risks and assesses their impact. Chapter five presents some stakeholder perceptions of risks and evaluates levels of vulnerability among various livelihood groups. The study concludes in chapter six with an assessment of priorities for risk management and a broad discussion of possible risk management measures that can help to strengthen the resiliency of agricultural supply chains and the livelihoods they support.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.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 Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.