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Nutrition-sensitive agriculture
A growing number of governments, donor agencies, and development organizations are committed to supporting nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) to achieve their development goals. Although consensus exists on pathways through which agriculture may influence nutrition-related outcomes, empirical evidence on agriculture’s contribution to nutrition and how it can be enhanced is still weak. This paper reviews recent empirical evidence (since 2014), including findings from impact evaluations of a variety of NSA programs using experimental designs as well as observational studies that document linkages between agriculture, women’s empowerment, and nutrition. It summarizes existing knowledge regarding not only impacts but also pathways, mechanisms, and contextual factors that affect where and how agriculture may improve nutrition outcomes. The paper concludes with reflections on implications for agricultural programs, policies, and investments, and highlights future research priorities.
How do agricultural development projects aim to empower women? Insights from an analysis of project strategies
Increasing numbers of development agencies and individual projects espouse objectives of women’s empowerment, yet there has been little systematic work on mechanisms by which interventions can enhance women’s empowerment. This gap exists because of the lack of consensus on indicators as well as the lack of attention paid to measuring the effects of different types of interventions on empowerment. This paper identifies the types of strategies employed by 13 agricultural development projects within the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project Phase 2 (GAAP2) that have explicit objectives of empowering women. We distinguish between reach, bene...
Improving the equity and effectiveness of Nepal’s fertilizer subsidy program
This paper examines the fertilizer subsidy program in Nepal from two different angles, both important for policy makers in the country. First, it analyzes who is benefiting from the program, and second, it examines how farmers rank the importance of public spending on fertilizer subsidies compared with other potential public investments. Whereas the former question is important for judging whether the program is meeting its objectives, the latter is essential to understanding the scope for reform, in particular the extent to which we could expect citizens to resist reforms to the subsidy program. We draw on these analyses as well as on examples from other countries to make policy recommendations to improve program implementation.
Farmers’ quality assessment of their crops and its impact on commercialization behavior: A field experiment in Ethiopia
Adoption of quality-enhancing technologies is often driven largely by farmers’ expected returns from these technologies. Without proper grades, standards, and certification systems, however, farmers may remain uncertain about the actual financial return associated with their quality-enhancing investments. This report summarizes the outcomes of a short video-based randomized training intervention on wheat quality measurement and collective marketing among 15,000 wheat farmers in Ethiopia. Our results suggest that the intervention led to significant changes in farmers’ commercialization behaviors—namely, it prompted farmers to adopt behaviors geared toward assessing their wheat’s quali...
Participation, learning, and equity in education: Can we have it all?
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have set a triple educational objective: improving access to, quality of, and gender equity in education. This study is the first to document the effectiveness of policies targeting all these objectives simultaneously. We examine the impact of a multifaceted educational program—delivered to 230 randomly selected primary schools in rural India—on students’ participation and performance. We also study the heterogeneity of this impact across gender and initial school performance, and its sustainability over two years. Although the program specifically targeted outof-school girls for enrollment, the learning component of the program targeted boys and girls equally. We find that the program reduced gender gaps in school retention and improved learning during the first year of implementation. However, targeting different educational goals (access, quality, and equity) did not yield sustained effects on school attendance or learning, nor did it bridge gender inequalities in school performance over the two-year period.
The European Union–West Africa Economic Partnership Agreement
Despite recent modifications, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and West African (WA) countries is still being criticized for its potential detrimental effects on WA countries. This paper provides updated evidence on the impact of the EPA on these countries. A dynamic multicountry, multisector computable general equilibrium trade model with modeling of the dual-dual economy and with a consistent tariff aggregator is used to simulate a series of new scenarios that include updated information on the agreement. We also go beyond estimating macrolevel economic effects to analyze the impacts on poverty. The policy simulation results show that the implementation of the EPA between the EU and WA countries would have marginal but positive impacts on Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire and negative impacts on Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. The impact on poverty indicators in Ghana and Nigeria would be marginal. From the perspective of WA countries, this study supports the view that recent EU concessions are not sufficient and that domestic fiscal reforms are needed in WA countries themselves.
Food for All
This book is a historical review of international food and agriculture since the founding of the international organizations following the Second World War, including the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and into the 1970s, when CGIAR was established and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was created to recycle petrodollars. Despite numerous international consultations and an increased number of actors, there has been no real growth in international assistance, except for the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The book concurrently focuses on the structural transformation of de...
He says, she says: Exploring patterns of spousal agreement in Bangladesh
Participation in household decisions and control over assets are often used as indicators of bargaining power. Yet spouses do not necessarily provide the same answers to questions about these topics. We examine differences in spouses’ answers to questions regarding who participates in decisions about household activities, who owns assets, and who decides to purchase assets. Disagreement is substantial and systematic, with women more likely to report joint ownership or decision making and men more likely to report sole male ownership or decision making. Analysis of correlations between agreement and women’s well-being finds that agreement on joint decision making/ownership is generally positively associated with beneficial outcomes for women compared with agreement on sole male decision making/ownership. Cases of disagreement where women recognize their involvement but men do not are also positively associated with good outcomes for women, but often to a lesser extent than when men agree that women are involved.
Women's self-help groups, decision-making, and improved agricultural practices in India: From extension to practice
This research was undertaken as part of the Women Improving Nutrition through Group-based Strategies (WINGS) study, and was aimed at understanding ways to improve agricultural practices among women farmers in India. Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor. We investigate whether a women’s self-help group platform could be an effective way of improving access to information, women’s empowerment in agriculture, agricultural practice...
