Publication: A Method for Analyzing Differential Effects of Reform in African Cotton Sectors
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Date
2009
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1166-7699
Published
2009
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This paper is based on a detailed assessment of cotton sector performance in nine countries of West-Central Africa (WCA) and East and Southern Africa (ESA): Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The paper builds on earlier work in ESA by Poulton et al. (2004), asking whether the findings in that research stand up to the passage of five years time, to the inclusion of WCA with its vastly differing history and institutional setup, and to the richer set of performance indicators used in this paper. We find that the fundamental contentions in that earlier work, that increased competition will not necessarily improve performance, and that the appropriate role of government depends on the specific market structure and regulatory regime of the sector, are strongly supported. Additional new insights are generated that provide useful guidance to policy makers and stakeholders as they work to improve productivity and ensure an equitable division of benefits within the sector.
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Publication Institutional Diversity and Performance in African Cotton Sectors(2010)This article analyses the performance of cotton sectors across East, Southern, and West Africa, paying particular attention to the wide diversity of institutional arrangements that they now exhibit. It finds strong support for earlier contentions regarding trade-offs between competition and coordination, and between the roles of public and private sectors. New insights provide concrete and context-specific guidance to policy-makers and stakeholders regarding the key challenges they will face and the risks they will need to manage as they work to improve productivity and ensure an equitable division of benefits within cotton sectors.Publication Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa : Learning from Reform Experience(World Bank, 2009)Cotton is a major source of foreign exchange earnings in more than 15 countries across all regions of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and a crucial source of cash income for millions of rural people in these countries. The crop is, therefore, critical in the fight against rural poverty. The World Bank and other development institutions have been and are currently assisting many cotton exporting countries of SSA to improve their cotton sector performance through projects supporting investment as well as through policy and institutional reform. Many SSA countries have been implementing or are considering implementing reforms of their cotton industries. The ultimate objective of the reform programs is to strengthen the competitiveness of cotton production, processing, and exports in an increasingly demanding world market and to ensure long-term, sustainable, and equitable growth for these major sectors of many African economies. The reform programs generally entail redefining the role of the state; facilitating greater involvement of the private sector and farmer organizations; ensuring greater competition in input and output markets; improving productivity through research and development, extension, and technology dissemination; and seeking value addition through market development and processing of cotton lint and by-products. A number of SSA cotton sectors, especially in West and Central Africa (WCA), are currently facing serious short-term financial difficulties. It is important to clarify that the purpose of this report is not to provide quick solutions to these short-run problems. Rather, it is to step back, build up a reliable broad assessment of cotton sector performance from detailed empirical information, and thereby provide guidance for the design of strategies that will address the long-term challenges of cotton production and marketing in Africa. Finally, to ensure that a broad perspective was brought to bear, the study was entrusted to a team which includes independent researchers and experts in the field of cotton.Publication Reform Experience with the Tanzanian Cotton Sector(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)Cotton, Tanzania's second largest crop after coffee, was introduced at the turn of the century by German settlers as a plantation crop but later efforts focused on smallholder production. Output rose considerably with the releases of new varieties, along with better organization of the sector following establishment of the Tanganyika Lint and Seed Marketing Board in 1956. By 1966, production reached 80,000 tons, or 0.75 percent of world production of 10.7 million tons.Publication Markets for Cotton By-Products : Global Trends and Implications for African Cotton Producers(2010-06-01)This paper analyzes and compares the structure of cotton by-products industries in selected countries (Uganda, Tanzania, Benin, and Burkina Faso) in the context of the global vegetable oil market. It reaches several conclusions. First, because the markets for various edible oils are highly integrated with each other, examination of each oil market should be done in conjunction with all other (relevant) edible oil markets. Second, the recent surge in demand for commodities used as feedstocks for biofuels is unlikely to become a new source of growth for the cotton oil market. Third, within the context of deepening the on-going reform efforts in West and Central African countries, cotton by-products should be taken into consideration, both in terms of the cotton price setting mechanism and the size of the organization of the cotton by-products industry. Fourth, trade policies including export bans or import tariffs to protect the domestic crushing industries, and policies that favor crude over refined oils, should be rationalized. Fifth, large cottonseed processing operations using advanced technology, while efficient from a technological perspective, tend not to be economically profitable in the African context. Last, research efforts for new cotton varieties should consider the value of by-products, not just lint.Publication The Economics of Roller Ginning Technology and Implications for African Cotton Sector(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-06)This report is the final product of a follow-up study undertaken after the completion of the comparative analysis of organization and performance of cotton sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa, a study published by the World Bank in 2008. The objective of this complementary study is to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the main available technologies to separate the lint from the raw cotton, roller ginning and saw ginning, and carry out an economic analysis of the respective benefits of these two technologies for cotton producing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. The study shows that the choice of ginning technology is an important factor of performance and is in turn influenced by the cotton sector structure. The type of ginning technology also has an impact on lint quality, and, as roller ginning is less damaging to the fiber than saw ginning, it can generate a price premium. The overall economic advantage of roller gins vs. saw gins appears to be significant in the Sub-Saharan African context, and likely to increase in the future as the demand for quality is becoming more and more stringent. Thus, although there are technical and organizational issues to address in order to fully capture the benefits of the technology, the introduction of roller ginning is likely to improve the competitiveness of African cotton and facilitate the transition towards more competitive cotton sectors.
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